Three Word Phrase
by Jiia-chan
Summary: SheikXLink Yaoi Three little words can do anything. They can describe a moment. They can lay bare a soul. They can mean the life or death of a person. Three little words, and the world can change. Now defunct!
1. Chapter 1 Is that him?

Aloha, mon amigos! This is yet another chaptered fanfiction which I may or may not actually write. It is the product of procastiation, so you can never be sure. If people like it, then I'll keep going. I've already got the first eleven chapters ready, so, you know, it shouldn't be that bad. Although... I do have up to fifty planned. So you never know. Anyways, this is inspired by a list of three-word phrases that me and moi buddy came up with. You put them in a certain order, and hey, you've got a story! Isn't that great?

Anyways, as always, I still own nothing. I'm just borrowing them. And, strangely enough, this isn't going to be AU. All will be explained, my children. All will be explained.

* * *

I looked down, through the pale sunlight slanting down from the crystal glass window at my back. The boy seemed normal enough. Shortish blonde hair, ridiculous green get-up with a stupid hat that just had to be pinned to his head. He looked a little like he had just stepped right out of the illustrations in the old books Etin showed me. Like he had been dressed up to look the part. The thought made me want to laugh, but I didn't. 

Sheikah didn't laugh.

As he turned to saunter down the short stairs with the confident swagger I'd come to expect from every non-Sheikahn warrior I chanced to meet, I dropped from the narrow ledge and onto the cool grey tiles of the Chamber floor. A quick dash, totally soundless, of course, and I was standing exactly where he had been only moments before. I straightened myself up, hoping against hope that he wouldn't turn around and start laughing at the total ridicularity of this get-up Etin made me wear. After taking a moment to rehearse once more the corny-as-hell lines I'm supposed to say, I call out to him.

"I've been waiting for you, Hero of Time."

My voice echoes in the stillness.

* * *

EtinAunty. And yes, I will continue to call her Etin, so get used to it. And there will be other little snippets of Suresh, my very own multipurpose language masquerading as Sheikahn. Or in some cases, Gerudo. Because it really is just that cool. 


	2. Chapter 2 He hates me

"Come now, Tajah." Etin grumbles, looking up from her studies long enough to glare at me. "It couldn't have been as bad as you say."

"Trust me." I sigh, sitting back in my chair and throwing the long strip of rags I have just spent the last two hours unwinding onto the rough wooden table next to me. "It was. He tried to disembowel me. I only barely escaped with my life."

Etin sighs and puts down her quill, as if accepting that she shan't be allowed to continue her work until I've left the room.

"Well, you can't really blame him now, can you? We might have had seven years to get settled, but he was still in battle-mode. Probably still is. It might not have been the best of ideas to sneak up on him."

"Maybe, dearest aunt," I said, staring at her with my best angry gaze and deliberately addressing her in the language of our rulers, just to emphasize the extent of my irritation. "Someone should have thought of that BEFORE sending me in to startle the heavily armed fairy."

Etin snorted and picked her pen back up, as if in stubborn refusal to acknowledge my presence.

"For one thing, he's Hylian. Not a fairy. I would have thought you could tell the difference between pointy-eared people and little floating balls of light by now."

"Well, you know how it is. They just look so much alike." I snap.

I hadn't meant that kind of fairy.

But now that I think about it... Impa doesn't need to know that.

"And for two, he really wasn't that heavily armed. Since you're not evil, the master sword would have been ineffective against you."

"Etin... Even if the magic didn't work, the sword itself would probably have killed me."

Etin doesn't look up.

"True. But that's not the point."

I sigh and push myself up off the chair. I am suddenly filled with the desire to go sit in my little room, lie on my little cot, and think very hard about why exactly I had suddenly decided that the Hero of Time was a fruit.

Maybe it was the hat.

* * *

TajahNephew 


	3. Chapter 3 I want him

The realization was stunning. I'm sitting up in the big old corpse of some ancient tree, watching him standing in front of some broken down stump, staring at it like it was a gravestone, and it hits me. Just like that.

I want him.

He's pretty enough, that's for sure. I'd picked up on that the first time 'round, when I was sitting on the windowsill, watching him materialize. He was down right beautiful. That was probably why I had him immediately pegged as queer. He was too pretty to be straight.

And then there was the whole 'stoic hero' thing. Strong, silent, the saviour of our world, and walking around in white tights. Well, long-johns, really. The shirt and the pants were undoubtedly part of the same strange Hylian undergarment. An undergarment probably designed specifically to taunt me with the hidden view of taunt calves, long, lanky legs going on forever, totally ruined by the baggy boots, of course, legs like those deserved four-inch stiletto heels. Black ones, ridding up all the way to the middle of his thigh, the leather kind with silver buckles...

Shit.

Damn you to hell, Etin, for making me wear spandex, of all things. No way you can hide a hard-on when you're wearing spandex.

He's waiting for me, I know. He doesn't even know it, really. It's been ingrained into his heroic little mind already. Get to the temple, wait for Sheik of the Sheikah (I groan to myself; really, could they not have found me a better name?), learn a pretty song, away you go.

All nice and neat. Every word scripted, ever line a lie. We're actors, him and I. Playing the part. He wears the baggy boots and the long-johns and the stupid hat because someone thought that was what a hero looked like. Even his perfect golden hair, even his unbelievable blue eyes, even the tragic smile that even now tugs at the corners of his perfect cupid's bow lips... None of them are his. Not really.

Suddenly, I don't feel particularly turned on any more.

I drop down from the tree, and the act begins, and it's all I can do not to cry.


	4. Chapter 4 I need him

Another idea, hitting me just as suddenly as the last one did.

I'm not in a tree this time, thank Godess. I'm laying on my stomach, watching him through the slats of a bridge. He's below me, trapezeing his way around and around the giant volcanic puddle, working his way up and around like a big spiral. I'm going to have to move soon, or he'll be able to see me up here, watching him.

And maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It must be aweful lonely for him, running around with just a glowing puff ball for company. It might be nice for him to know someone's looking out for him.

But if I let him see me, Etin will know. And if Etin knows, then Etin will be angry. And an angry Etin means pain. Lots of pain.

So maybe I'll hold back on the letting him see me part.

But then my mind starts to thinking... What can I do to let him know there's someone there without letting him actually know someone's there? What can I do to make things easier for him? And then I start thinking about all sorts of things, like going forth into the temple myself and trying to help him that way, by beating back the beasties and so forth. Or maybe I can leave him a potion or something, scatter stuff around so he can heal himself and maybe not die.

The thought was casual. The significance was not.

Not die? Not die?!? What did I mean, not die?!? He wasn't going to die! He was the Hero of Time, the one and only Link. He couldn't die. It just wasn't an option. If he managed to get himself killed, well then, I'd have no other choice than to kill myself, find him in the afterlife, and then kill him again. But slow, this time. Nice and slow. Punishing him for doing something so indescribably mean like dying.

But then I'd have to kill myself a second time, too. Because I want to be wherever he is. If he was in heaven, I'd want to go to heaven. If he was in Hell, well, I'd go there too. I'd even go to the Happy Mask Shop, scary as it was, if that was where he'd decided to spend the rest of his life.

I could no longer imagine living in a place where he was not. It was like I would wink out of existence if he wasn't there for me to stalk. As if, without him, I would no longer be able to survive.

Somehow, my life, my happiness, my very presence on this realm, had come to depend solely upon a man I'd only met twice. That strange, undeniable fact hit me like a fist to the stomach.

I need him.

And then he looked up, right at me, right into my eyes, peering out from between two boards. Maybe he saw me. Maybe he didn't. But, whatever he did or did not see, something made him look up and smile.


	5. Chapter 5 I love him

Etin stared at me. She blinked her burgundy eyes, blinked them again, rubbed them, shook her head, stared at me again.

"W-what?"

"I love him." I said again, somehow finding myself smiling, even though I know exactly what she's going to say.

"That's ridiculous. You're a man. He's a man. You have duties. Have you forgotten your duties? Ai ai ai, Tajah, what are you saying to me!" She grabbed great fistfuls of her glittery silver hair, pulling it loose from the tight tail behind her head.

"I know it's against our laws." I looked at her, and tried to show her with my eyes exactly what was going on inside my heart. "I know it's against everything you have taught. But I can't help it. I look at him, and..."

I paused, thinking of exactly what words I needed to say. I rehearsed them, like the lines written out for me by the hands of Fate, running them over and over in my mind. I'd heard them said before, of course. In the stories Grandmother used to tell, before she passed away. In the writings of the ones who came before. I knew Impa would know them. She was a scholar of the ancients. She would know their customs, their ways. She would understand the import of what I was about to say. Six words, and she would understand.

She had to.

"Impa..." My voice is strangely soft, strangely quiet, and I use her name, not Etin, not Aunt, just her name, and her eyes go wide. "I look at him, and I see that...the sun rises in his eyes."

I look up at her. Meet her eyes. See the understanding in them. She understood, she did, she knew how I felt and how could she deny me if she knew...

She started to cry.

This wasn't good.

"I'm sorry, Tajah." She whispered. "But it can't. We are the Shadow People. The sun doesn't rise for us."

I'd heard it all my life. _The Sun never rises on the Shiekah. _I had thought it an expression of our anger at the cards Fate had chosen to deal us. My people had never caught a break in our whole sad history. No wonder our symbol was a tear. But now... It seemed so much more tragic than it had before. An ancient expression of love... Shot down by a bitter truth which I couldn't honestly deny. The sun never rises for us... Love can never come true. That was what it meant. That was the truest meaning of the phrase. The Sheikah would never be allowed to love. Had never been allowed to love. It was probably why we were swiftly becoming a dead race. Why would we even want to continue, if we could never walk in the light?

"I'm sorry..." She whispered again, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

I slapped her hand away.


	6. Chapter 6 He was God

He was God.

It was as simple as that, really.

I remember hearing rumours, of the old days. Of the days before the Triad fell to earth. It was the age of Those Who Came Before. The Ancients. They had been sun-worshippers, the legends said. It was they who first drew time as a shimmering sun. It was they who constructed the six temples, which the Goddesses would later corrupt to their own designs.

It had been their phrase I used in my futile attempt to sway Impa into letting me run off and play lover. The sun rises in their eyes. It had been the ultimate expression of love, back then. It was all well and fine to say, I love you, but... For a society for whom the sun was God, it was a big deal.

It made sense, really. The sun gave life. It warmed the earth and allowed everything to grow. Worshipping it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. And to say that, as far as you were concerned, the thing you called God came only from the eyes of your beloved, well, that was just plain romantic. Your world began and ended with them.

And that was exactly how I felt about him. I needed him. I loved him. He was my sun and my moon and my stars and the earth underneath my feet. My life had begun the first time I saw the shimmer of his golden hair. Before that I was as a new born plant, waiting with indrawn breath for the first rays of dawn to wake me up from my never-ending sleep.

But I am a Sheikah first, and all else second. And the Sheikah are shadows. The light of the sun can never reach us.

And so I am doomed to sleep forever, methinks, worshipping a bright god who's hand I can never hold, who's lips I can never kiss, who's heart I can never enter into. His scorching gaze can never come upon me. I am doomed to remain alone forever.

Depressing, isn't it?

I thought so. Worked myself up into a good cry. Silently, of course. Sitting in another tree, watching him sitting in the lonely light of a campfire. Wondering if he felt the same as me.

But why would he? Why would God give a damn about one pitiful servant? One silly little disciple who didn't even have the courage to come out of the shadows and sit next to him. God has other things to worry about. Like saving the world. Possibly finding something to eat that doesn't have something green growing where something green isn't supposed to grow. Maybe investing in a bed roll.

He settled down into the dirt, sword at hand, using his arm as a makeshift pillow. Taking off the hat and unleashing a torrent of beautiful hair, he said an absent good night and drifted off to sleep.

I paused. He looked awfully uncomfortable. And cold. As warm as the Hyrule days could be, the nights were still markedly chill. The tights wouldn't have been doing a thing to keep the cool out. And, as it just so happened, I had a bed roll. Two, actually, but only one with me. The other one was back at the secret hide out. But that was fine, it wasn't far, and I hadn't really planned on getting any sleep anyways.

I dropped down out of the tree before I could change my mind and run screaming in the opposite direction.

I'd never seen him this close before. We'd kept our distance, during our little rendezvous. We'd gotten pretty cozy the first time we met, but I'd been a mite distracted, what with the avoiding being disembowelled and all. This was the first chance I'd had to really look at him.

He was even more beautiful close up. Perfection. Absolute perfection. There wasn't a single particle of his being which wasn't exactly how it was supposed to be. Smooth, pale skin, the legendary hair, which was apperantly very glad to be free of the confines of his hat, judging by the way it was springing every where. Even the stupid outfit seemed cooler close up.

I undid the bed roll to make a kind of blanket. I really didn't want to wake him up trying to get him in it all proper-like. Overtop would have to do. I draped it over his shoulders, gently tucking him in, resisting the urge to touch his face.

And then his hand brushed mine.

Which made very little sense, as his hands _should_ have been under the blanket.

I glanced up at his angelic face, looked into his azure eyes, and saw him smile.


	7. Chapter 7 What is he

His fingers flexed, in and then out, the cool flesh of his fingertips finding the one spot on my hand not covered in bandages and stroking it. Running his fingers over my skin, like a blind man touching silk. His eyes on mine, never leaving them, never wavering even once. Smiling at me as he stroked my hand.

I was suddenly glad of the cloth over my face. It would do wonders to hide my blush.

"Thanks, Sheik." He whispered, although it wasn't really a whisper, just soft speech. Like he didn't care who heard him, that wasn't the point, the point was to speak softly, gently. The same way he was still touching my hand.

"No problem." I swallowed hard, cursing the tremor in my voice.

The sun was staring at me. I felt like I was going to melt.

And then he shifted his hand. Brought it down, underneath my own, palm to palm. Our fingers locked together, a perfect fit, dirty bandages and pale skin side by side like this was meant to be, like we were meant to do this, to hold hands. Like our bodies had been sculpted to fit one another. Opposite pieces of the same puzzle.

I felt my heart begin to race. Not that it hadn't been racing before, of course, but that had been weak, just-for-the-hell-of-it racing. This was more of a your-life-depends-on-it racing. I could hardly believe what was happening.

Maybe the sun would rise on this Sheikah after all.

"You've been watching me." He stated as pure fact, as if he knew beyond a doubt that it was true. Which it was.

"Of course I have." I wet my lips. My mouth was suddenly very dry. "It's my dut-"

And that was as far as I got before his other hand darted out with shocking speed and tore down the cloth wall standing defiantly between us, followed shortly after by a pair of very warm, very soft lips.

* * *

Loha. This one is rather short, I know, but the next one is a little longer. I think. I'm not entirely sure. Anyways, I would like to propose a little contest. Who can guess the next phrase?!?!? Anyone who gets it right will have a chapter dedicated to them. Neato, huh? Anyways, I'll give you three clues.

1) The phrase follows the same pattern as this one.

2) Two of the words are the same.

3) And... Um... Ok, maybe I won't give you a third clue.

HEY!!! If you sign the review or give me your email adress or something, I can send you the next chapter before everyone else gets to read it!!! Is that a cool prize?

Anyways, review, please! I like reviews. It inspires me to write more. So there. Mwahahahahahaha.

Ok, I'm off to go do some random stuff now. So... yeah.


	8. Chapter 8 Why is he?

Hello again. Welcome to the next chapter. Kudos go to noperfect917 for trying. You were the ONLY ONE. COME ON, PEOPLE!!! Pick up yer britches and GUESS!!! Even if it's randomly. Mwah. As for the next chapter... once again, two of the words are the same, and in the same places as this chapter. The different word is in the past tense and begins with a w. Go ahead and make your choices.

* * *

The sun shot up above the horizon and was burning above us in all it's glittering glory, bathing us in delicious heat. His mouth on mine, kissing me, open and sure like he knew exactly what he was doing, like he did this kind of thing all the time. So confident, for a ten year old.

There was no way he'd just slept for seven years and could kiss a guy like that. Goddess, I'd been awake and couldn't kiss like that.

I was an absolute wreck, completely tensing up and probably causing his poor hand intense pain. But he just coaxed me out of it, squeezing my hand right back, his unoccupied hand slipping under the thick cloth of my turban and into my hair. He took it slow, gentle, giving me more than enough time to restart my brain and never once backing down. It was like he could read my mind, like he knew that I'd wanted this, been thinking about this, and that the whole stiff thing was just shock, not horror. As if he knew exactly what had been running through my mind.

Slowly, I relaxed into his kiss, started kissing back. Not anything fancy, just a return pressure to confirm my interest. Like that was the issue.

But then, what was the issue? Why was I still nervous? Why was I still standing, bent over all awkward-like, instead of on my knees, on top of him, like I should have been? Why did I want his hand out of my hair, away from my neck, somewhere I could see it.

Why was I treating him like an enemy? Someone I couldn't trust?

Considering our current situation, it made almost negative amounts of sense.

He seemed to figure this out as well, because fast as a blink, his hand was out of mine and tugging the front of my outfit, pulling me down onto my knees. It slid up my side, over my ribs, onto my back, leaving a trail of shivers behind it. He pulled me down until our bodies were completely flush, chest against chest, stomach against stomach, only the thick fabric of the bed roll and our own annoying garments between us.

I gasped. And he took advantage of that.

His tongue was hot, and tasted a little bit like honey. But not the regular stuff, no, the special kind. The delicious spiced honey used in the ceremonies to Farore. I could still remember the taste of it from when I was a little boy and didn't understand why some things were off limits to little Sheikah boys. It was warm and sweet, made all the better by the hazy knowledge floating in the back of my mind that anything as good as this was still, and forever would be, off limits. I knew it was wrong. And the wrongness made it good.

So good.

He slowly pulled back, flicking the bruised flesh of my bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. I was breathing hard, almost panting, but he was barely flushed. Only his eyes showed any sign of our predicament. They burned, like blue embers. Like slices of the sky.

"You've been watching me… staring…" he whispered, a real whisper this time, confidential and secret and really, really sexy. "I can feel your eyes on me all the time."

I felt like I should say something. But there really was nothing to say. Not when he was looking at me like that. With that strange expression, those strange eyes. They were filled with something, something dark and bright at the same time. Something I'd never seen before.

"So, Sheik of the Sheikah…" He slid his hands down my back, to my hips, making me shudder and choke back a whimper. "Do you like what you see?"

With one smooth motion, he made the sun fall from the sky right into my head. With one gentle roll of his hips, he made the world light up and stars dance behind my eyes. One touch, flesh to cloth to flesh, and I knew I would never be able separate him from the sensation ever again. No matter how long I lived, how may partners I had, I would never once be able to have someone touch me and not think of him.

He had gotten under my skin, and I wasn't entirely sure that wasn't exactly what I had wanted from the beginning.


	9. Chapter 9 Why would he?

Hello, everyone!! This is a short chapter, unfortunately. And I mean, really, really short. Double drabble short. Which makes me all manner of sad. But, saying thus, there will be more, much longer chapters in the future.

Hurrah for Somebody Weird, who correctly guessed this chapter's title!! Send me your email, and I'll ship off the next chapter for you. But, of course, that means you're not allowed to guess that particular title. .- Anyways... I am currently stealing these brief moments from my physics teacher, and he does not like to be stolen from, so I suppose I should just give you the clues and be on my way.

1) There is one similar word in the next title, and it does not start with w. 2) There _is_ one word that begins with w. and... 3) the similar word is in the totally opposite slot as it is in this chapter's title. OH!! And one of the words starts with an m, but it is not the middle word.  
Good luck! With love, Jiia

* * *

"I take that as a yes." He chuckled, his fingers drawing idle patterns along my flanks. 

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. I had moaned. And rather loudly, too. Very un-Sheikah-like. But then again, you try being silent when you've got a veritable God pressing himself against you, and the imminent possibility of sex with said god looming large in your mind. It's a lot more difficult than one would believe.

"Link…" I gasped, and surprised myself by smashing our lips together again.

Link didn't seem all that shocked, however. He kissed me with just as much force as I was kissing him, hard enough to be painful, hard enough for me to feel the teeth behind his lips, through them, in fact. And then it was more of a teeth against teeth thing, tongues battling, his winning, as he always did, and I realized it would probably cause my body a lot less damage if I just let him win. As wonderful as this was, I really didn't want to have to explain bruises to Etin whenever I saw her again. Especially the finger-shaped ones he was currently making on my hip bones.

But a few seconds later, I really didn't care if I had bruises or not. Let them come. He could give me as big a bruise as he wanted, as long as he kept rolling his hips up into me like that. As long as he kept crushing my growing hard-on against his, I was up for anything.

As long as it never stopped.


	10. Chapter 10 He wants me

Alrighty!!! Hurrah for updates. I am now nearing the end of the chapters I have already written. This means one very important thing. I will forget to write them if you don't review me. If you do not review me, it is very likely that I will forget this story exists and just never ever write it ever again. SO REVIEW ME, PEOPLE! Love it, hate it, whatever! Remind me of it's existance. Because I have no idea what's going on, and I would really like to find out. Anyways... Hurrah for iredlk and your noble try. Despite the fact that it was wrong. Because that would have been a REALLY cool title, and I think I shall have to steal it for one of the chapters later on. Anyways... For the next chapter!! The clues are as follows.

1) It follows the same pattern as chapters 3-5. As if that didn't completely give it away. 2) There is only one different word. 3) That word begins with an n.

If people can't guess this... Then that's just sad. People who get it right will be able to read the next chapter ahead of everyone else! Just leave your name and email! And I have to let you know... The next one's one of the better ones. Especially with this cliff-hanger ending. Mwahahaha. Got you all riled up, didn't I? Anyways... You can read now.

AND OF COURSE YOU CAN REPLY, Somebody Weird!! Silly girl. Assuming, of course that you are, in fact, a girl. Anyways... Sorry, other people who are not Somebody Weird. Read on.

* * *

And then something occurred to me, back in the part of my brain not presently occupied with what the Hero of Time was doing to me. He was as hard as I was. He was just as affected as the feelings shooting between us as I was. 

He wanted me as much as I wanted him.

The thought made me whimper. The feeling was mutual. The thought of sex with me was turning him on just as much as the thought of sex with him was working it's magic on me. It made me want to cry, to just break and start weeping and then tear all my clothes off and make him fuck me till we both exploded.

I wanted him inside me, wanted to be impaled upon the evidence of his desire, wanted to be stretched till I felt like I was going to burst. And he wanted to do it.

So what, exactly, was stopping us?

With a heartfelt moan, I grabbed the blanket I had so lovingly placed over his body and tore it away. He laughed into the kiss, dropping one hand from my hip to the buckle on his belt. I slapped his hands away and undid it myself, my fingers moving so fast it's a wonder I managed to open the thing at all. He returned his hands to my body, trying to find the seams of the stupid spandex body suit. There were many trimmings and ridges that seemed like likely candidates, and he tried each and every one of them. As I threw his belt off to the side, I felt him growl in frustration and couldn't help but laugh.

"How the hell do you get this thing off?" He tugged rather violently at one of the white strip along my arm. I smiled and sat up, letting my full weight press down on the bulge in his pants.

"It's a secret." I felt myself grin. "Let me show you."

I pulled the mantle up over my head, letting the mask and the remains of the turban go with it. Hidden by the ragged cloth was the real seam, tiny loops secured to tiny buttons, running down my chest like a rope ladder. My practiced fingers had no trouble pushing the little blue beads out of their opposites. I could have undone the whole thing in a matter of seconds. But I decided to do it slowly, making him wait for it. Make him watch.

His eyes followed my fingers, devouring the darkened skin each undone button revealed. When the last button had been popped loose, I shrugged the fabric off my shoulders. I tossed my arm braces to the side and pulled my arms loose, loving the strangely awed expression on his face as his eyes raked across my body.

"What… the… hell…?" He whispered. I frowned.


	11. Chapter 11 He needs me

Ok... This is a very random, very short little chapter. But then again, most of them are. This is mostly set up for the UBER PLOT FILLED chapter after this. Happy preview-ness goes to Silent Slayer 2000, who correctly guessed the title. Kudos go to Raika Katsuya, who came painfully close. And then, of course, to Somebody Weird, who reviewed and said more that "das is gR34t.", and made two valiant attempts at guessing which shall more than likely spawn more chapters. Which sucks for me, because I've already got over 50 phrases to write about. Anyways... Thanks to everyone for reading! Here are the clues.

1) Follows the same pattern as before.

2)Two words the same, and in the same position.

3) The changed word begins with L.

Also... I am begining to succumb to the inevitable. This light, happy little frolic in the world of Shink fluff is slowly turning angsty. You have one... Maybe two more chapters of sunshine and puppies before everything goes to hell. You've been warned.

* * *

It wasn't until he brought his fingers up to trace the arching line of the bird's wing that I figured out what he was talking about.

"It's the royal family's crest." I told him. He continued to run his fingers along the shiny raised flesh, tracing the contours of the crest as if he were drawing them on my skin all over again.

"I got that part. Are these burn scars?" He tore his eyes away from them, looking back into my eyes, concern shimmering in the azure sea that was his gaze.

"Yeah. Every Sheikah is branded at birth. That way, we can never forget which way our allegiance lies." I sighed, looking down at the ugly scars I hadn't even remembered were there. So much for a constant reminder.

"Does it hurt?" He whispered, pressing his hand flat against the marred flesh.

"Not any more. It used to. Now they're just a little sensitive." I squirm under his gentle touch. I want him to stop touching me, stop looking at me. I want to just forget that the scars even exist. They're ugly, and I don't want him to see them. I want him to think I'm beautiful.

"You are beautiful." He whispered, and it took me a moment to figure out that he wasn't actually responding to my thoughts. And then another moment, to figure out what he was actually saying.

I look down at him. Look at him, and let my eyes show the contents of my heart. Let him see the want, the need, the love. Didn't tell him, because that would be against the Sheikah way. But I show him. I show him my heart, and see the sunshine in his eyes. Not from within them, but reflected upon them. Reflected back from me.


	12. Chapter 12 He Loves Me

Mwahahaha... Here we are, another fun-filled chapter of Three Word Phrase. Which, for some reason, I insist upon calling A Shadow In Passing. Freaking brain, mixing my stories up. Geez. Anyways... Hurrah for Wulfie-The-Back-Side-Slayer, who guessed this chapter title correctly! Kudos go to spice lily, who was so close it hurt. It really did. Anyways... Wu, you are free to guess for chapter 14, just not 13, kay? Great.

Here are des clues... 1) It is a question. 2) The 'questiony word' starts with a w and ends with an o. 3) The last word begins with a y.

If no one gets this I am going to cry. Really.

Read on, my freaky darlings. Read on.

(And just so you know, the angst officially starts here.)

* * *

He loves me.

He doesn't have to say. I know it. I can see it. It's suddenly as obvious to me as the sun shining in the day. He opens his heart to me, just as I did to him, and the same things are inside them both. The same feelings. The same emotions. The same. We are the same, he and I. Hylian and Sheikah, two races, light and shadow, but we aren't either, are we? We've become the twilight, he and I. Dusk and dawn, different but in a moment the same. Travelling opposite arcs across the sky. Crossing paths in the great empty blue.

"Sheik…" He whispers, and I can hear it in his voice. It's hiding there too, and it has been, this whole time. It's been hiding there, the love. I just never heard it. And maybe he didn't either, because he looks surprised.

And then surprise melts seamlessly into concern, and I realize that the hot wet running down my cheeks isn't sweat or rain.

"Sheik…" He reaches up and wipes away my tears, looking so scared and so worried and it makes me want to laugh, but it just comes out as a sob. "What's wrong? Was it something I did? Was it something I said?"

I just shake my head, press my face into his hand. I find his fingers again, and slip mine in between, and this time it's not like pieces of a puzzle, because pieces are pieces are pieces and they'll always be different. This time, my hand stops being my hand and his hand stops being his hand and it becomes _our _hand. Both of us, suddenly one. One person, one love, one. Together. And he feels it too, I know he does, because he gasps, and the pulse is racing between us, two hearts beating to the same rhythm, and it is beautiful. It is more than love and more than need and more than want, it's such a connection, such a complete opening to one another, it transcends words.

I can look into his mind and see through his eyes. See the flash of steel and a sudden streak of blue that had to be me, feel the hesitation that slowed his sword and let me escape without a scratch. He would have killed me, without that one brief moment of _wait_. And then, standing before the rotted stump, feeling my eyes on him, watching him, cursing the tights as much as I cursed spandex. Holding back tears when I finally came down and spoke my lines and only my lines, as if I really was only doing my duty. As if I really didn't care. And then, sure enough, he saw me through the slats, a blue shadow upon black, watching him again. And the thought made him smile. A guardian angel, keeping him safe. Someone looking out for him for a change.

And then, just now, when he lay down knowing I was there, knowing I would keep him safe, and knowing that he would get his first full night's sleep for months because of it. He could sleep, because I was there. And then along I come, with my blanket and my tragic thoughts and he wasn't quite sure it wasn't a dream. Wasn't quite certain that he wouldn't wake up when he took my hand and it dissolved from under his fingers, wouldn't wake up crying when he leaned forward to kiss me and I wasn't there. When I just melted away.

But I didn't. Hadn't. And still, he couldn't believe that it was real. Couldn't honestly believe that what he was seeing wasn't a dream, until my suit came off and he saw something he couldn't believe he'd imagined. Something he never would have willed upon me, even in a dream. The scars woke him up, and then he knew. I was just like he had imagined.

I felt it, looked through his eyes at my own scarred body, and knew what he'd said was true. I really was beautiful. At least to him.

The sun floated between us, unsure as to whom it was supposed to be in. Both of us saw it, glimmering in the light of each other's eyes. The light was so bright, we might very well have gone blind.

And then, without any warning whatsoever, it went out.


	13. Chapter 13 Who are you?

Mwahahahaha... I am demonic. Angst is about to poor down in buckets, my friends. Everyone who wants cheerful, happy things like bunny rabbits and fuzzy pink unicorns should go read something else. Hurrah for Somebody Weird, whom I have totally coerced into being my beta, and Spice lily, who correctly guessed the title. Also to Silent Slayer, who made a valiant effort. And yes, you can guess as long as I didn't send you the file ahead of time. Because otherwise it wouldn't be fair.

And also... To Ms. I Will Consume Your Soul... You make me happy. Reviews 3, and you review, therefore you 3.

Ok then! Clues. 1) It is another question. 2) The second word begins with a G. 3) The questiony word begins with a W and ends with a t.

Good luck!

With love, Jiia.

* * *

"So this is how the Hero of Time spends his lonely nights, eh?" The darkness laughed. "Screwing a Sheikah whore. How appropriate." 

Link reached for his sword, but it was no longer where I had left it. My braces, and consequently the needles hidden inside them, seemed to be gone as well. In fact, very little of the empty field remained free of the viscous shadows that seemed to have engulfed the world. We were on an island of moonlight, growing smaller every second.

"Who are you?!?" Link shouted. I felt the pounding of his heart, the fear which was not fear thundering inside his head.

He sat up, wrapped an arm around me, pulled me to his chest. He had become the hero again, and it was his duty to protect me. The play had begun again, and we each had our own roles to play.

"Who do you think I am, boy?" The darkness snapped. "It's really not that difficult of a question. I bet if you think real hard, you'll figure it out."

Link's eyes narrowed, then went very, very wide. For one brief moment, I almost thought he might have been stabbed in the back or some other not-visible-to-me part of his body, he went so pale. It was like all the blood was just disappearing into thin air.

I felt the thrill of his fear, and the shudder of mine worked its way up his back. Then, as one, we whispered the name, the name both of us suddenly knew.

"Ganondorf."

"Well, aren't you boys bright!" The Gerudo king laughed, even as he unleashed the wall of shadows he had built around us, letting it crash down like the waves of a tsunami, encasing us in darkness.

Link held tight to my hand, but the struggle was useless. His fingers slipped from mine, and I was all alone.


	14. Chapter 14 What's Going On?

Ok, folks, here we are. The beginning of the real, honest to god angst. The serious stuff. The stuff that's gonna make you wanna sit in a corner and cry. Because I know I did.

Anyways... Sorry for the not updating every twenty seconds. I've been busier than stink, and have had zero amounts of time. Hurrahs go to Silent Slayer, Samus, and Galenchia for thier noble efforts. No one got it this time, unfortunately, and that makes me sad, so therefore I shall increase goodness of the hints by as much as I can. Because I want people to get it. Mwahahaha.

Anyways... Here are teh hints. 1) It is a standard cuss/exclamation. 2) The word that begins it is the same as this chapter, only minus the 's. 3) The last word begins with H.

Guess, people! Make me happy!

* * *

I woke up in a bed of red silk, with burgundy velvet framing four walls around it. My first thoughts were… confused, to say the least. I tried to find Link, not with my eyes but with my mind, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He wasn't there. I couldn't feel him with me any more. We were separate again. 

My Sheikah training kicked in. I took a mental tally of my current status, and found it was a little better than I'd hoped. I didn't appear to be injured, other than a couple of aching bruises on my hips. I was also, I noted with some alarm, completely naked.

And tied to the bed.

Shit.

More red silk wrapped its way around my arms and then promptly affixed itself to a little iron ring set into the middle of the headboard. My feet seemed to be unbound, but my arms would have to stay above my head until I worked my way loose. Although, judging from the little test wriggles I performed, someone had tied me down very, very well.

Three guesses as to who it was.

This was really not good.

"Well, look at who finally decided to rejoin the living." Said the shadow behind the curtain I hadn't seen.

But maybe that wasn't really my fault… The curtain appeared to be dissolving. It had been opaque a moment ago.

"How are you feeling, Muuna Chevoh? I dearly hope my magic hasn't fried your brain. That would be a shame." Sure enough, Ganondorf stepped right through the curtain and sat himself down on the edge of the bed.

He reached out his sunburned hand tried to touch my face. Almost tender, almost caring. As if he had every right to touch me. As if we were lovers.

I almost ripped my arms out of their sockets trying to get away.

Ganondorf laughed and pulled his hand back.

"What are you so scared of?" To my surprise, his eyes never strayed from mine, despite the rather large expanse of flesh I had managed to uncover in my desperate scurry.

Well, to tell the truth, I had effectively pushed the blanket off of myself entirely. Meaning that there was nothing at all to stop him from looking at me. The fact that he didn't meant one of two things. Either he was a better man than I thought (not likely) or he had already seen me. Which would make sense, considering that I distinctly remembered still wearing the bottom half of my suit when everything went to hell, and now I definitely was not. The only question was…

"What have you done to me, bardarn?" I spat at him, using the worst possible insult I could conceive of at the time.

The dark king looked at me, as if considering the full meaning of my reasonably simple question. As if debating within himself what exactly that question meant.

And then he smiled, and it was the singly most unsettling thing I had ever seen in my entire life.

"Nothing, Muuna Chevoh.

"Not to you, at least."

* * *

Muuna Chevoh Little Shadow, in the litteral translation. Sort of an insult, actually. 

Bardarn Pervert.


	15. Chapter 15 What The Hell?

Rinky dinky dinky fudgbuckets... Just realized that I made an error in the last chapter. It has now been corrected. Sorry for all you people who are just reading this one, because it's not going to make ANY sense. Or at least the first couple of lines won't. Sorry about that. Just for clarification, Ganondorf, when asked what he did to our poor little Sheik, said "Nothing... At least, not to you." Grr... is angry with self. You see, this is what you get when you don't know what you're doing. Anyways... New guessingness happening here as well. First person to guess it right wins. Details are at the bottom of the page. And... I need to make my clues harder, because there were about fifty million winners this time around. I only gave the new chapter to the second person, though. And you know why it was second, and not first? BECAUSE THE FIRST PERSON GAVE ME NO WAY TO CONTACT THEM!!! I am sick and tired of going hunting for emails, so if you guess, please include your email with the review. If you don't, well, too bad for you, you get nothing. Pshaw.

Anyways... Like I said, fifty billion people got it. Samus would be the first, and the person who convinently forgot to sign it or give her email and was not logged on so I can't check her profile. Galenchia was the second, and recieved the prize. Runners up include Silent Slayer (No apologies required- the title was, in fact, a cuss.), I Will Consume Your Soul (And yes, there will be windows involved- no, I won't tell you how.), Somebody Weird (Who really should know this, since I sent it to her... Or at least I think I did.), and Iredlk, who posited such a lovely and non-swearwordy alternitive.

Anyways... The next clues! 1) The first word is the same in both this chapter's title and the next. 2) The last word has three letters, and begins with s. 3) It is in present tense.

* * *

"What do you mean, not to me?!" I snapped at him, feeling my innards snake and coil around themselves until it felt like I was nothing but a quivering mass of knots. "If you haven't done anything to me, then who…"

Even as I said it, I realized. Even as the words fell through my mouth, I came to the dread understanding of exactly, exactly what Ganondorf meant.

The evil man smirked. He knew that I knew. He wanted me to know. Wanted me to understand.

"No…" I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribcage like Ruto on speed. "You… You didn't…"

"Oh, yes, I did, little shadow." He let loose a laugh, more of a cackle really. "I did indeed."

"I don't believe you." I've never, ever spoken so strongly, and yet had my voice sound so weak.

"Then maybe I should show you."

The dark king clapped his calloused hands, and a pair of scantly clad Gerudo women brought in what appeared to be a large mirror. They set it at the foot of the bed, in such a way that I almost had no choice but to look at it. The women left, and Ganondorf rose from my bedside to stand next to the looking glass. He set his hand above the glass, directly over the center of the silvery surface, and began to speak in his native tongue.

"Hut'voh, ut uk U, go Lek'nar. Kyoh la le kardent, Link."

At the sound of the hero's name, familiar against all the strange sounds of the guttural Gerudo language, I felt my heart fall out of my chest and sink desolately into the deepest regions of the netherworld.

And then, slowly, the mirror began to change. The image of a frightened, naked Sheikah boy began to fade, and another took its place.

An image that crushed whatever hope was left inside my poor, defeated soul.

* * *

The random Gerudo/suresh means "Mirror, it is I, your master. Show me my servant, Link." Just so you know. Kudos and pre-cognitive rewards to anyone who can decipher my little code, by the way.

Also! I shall give you little movie-style previews if you can correctly find the number of extraneous three-word phrases in each chapter. And no, the title does not count, unless it's in the chapter itself. And the author's notes are off-limits too.


	16. Chapter 16 What I See

Ok... This chapter is ridiculously short, so I shall post two at once to make up for it. Happiness goes to Samus, who finally sent me her email, AND got the title right, and also to I Will Consume Your Soul, who made me laugh so hard I cried. What's with Sam indeed.

* * *

The golden hair I loved so much was gone. It had turned the colour of night, as black as the shadows that had ripped us apart. The sun-kissed skin which once slid beneath my fingers, softer than this monsters velvet sheets could ever be, had turned white. Almost grey, colourless. Lifeless. The flesh of a corpse. And his eyes… His eyes were no longer the glittering sapphire orbs shining with the light of a perfect Hyrulian sky that peered into my soul, smiling at the secrets I tried so hard to hide. They were red. Embers pushed into bloody sockets. Evil, demonic things, put there by an evil, demonic man. 

It was no wonder I had received no response when I had reached out to him before.

The Link I knew was no longer there


	17. Chapter 17 Oh My God

Mwahaha! A not-so-short chapter! Yeah! Anyways... For the little phrase contest thingy, do both chapters this time. Person who gets the number first gets a trailer. Not so fun as the chapter preview, but it's something. BTW... Things with commas, things in dialogue, etc. all count. Just so you know. Clues for the next chapter's title.. 1) The first word is "It's". 2) The last word is rather long (more so than usual) and begins with p. 2) The second word has three letters and begins with N.

* * *

"No…" My voice was small. 

Weak. Shaking with the terror running through my veins like ice water.

I hated it.

He loved it.

"Yes, my little Sheikah friend." Ganondorf laughed. "Hard to believe, isn't it? That such a strong, proud young man would fall to me so easily."

He stroked the frame of the mirror, almost lovingly. The same way he had tried to touch me.

"It didn't take much at all. Just being chained up helpless and alone was almost enough to break him. And then, of course, there was the knowledge of what I was undoubtedly doing to you." The king's bloody eyes glittered in the strange golden light.

He smiled and looked down into the grim image being projected through the glass. The ghost Link turned his terrible gaze towards the king, as if he could see the man as clearly as they could see him.

"Who do you serve, Link?" Ganondorf asked, lazily tracing the swirling patterns carved into the golden frame.

"You, my lord." Link's voice answered.

Even that had changed. It had become cold, emotionless… Empty.

"And who is this?" Ganondorf looked at me once more, still meeting my eyes, and only my eyes.

The shadow paused for a long, long moment. I could feel the embers of his eyes raking up and down my body, looking at every piece of exposed flesh Ganondorf had ignored. And yet, as much as he looked at me, he never really saw. There was no flare of recognition, no sudden flash of memory that would let me know that some small part of him remained.

"I have no idea." The shadow glanced back up at the Gerudo man now leaning against the bedpost. "Do you want me to deal with him, my lord?"

Ganondorf smiled again, looking me right in the eyes, and letting me see within his own. Letting me gaze upon the horrors he had in store for me, and see the twisted pleasure he would take from each and every one of them.

"Yes, Link. I do indeed."


	18. Chapter 18 It's Not Possible

Mwa... Sorry it took so long to update, guys. It's been a rough couple of days. I am so close to a mental breakdown it's not even funny. But I only have two more weeks, and then I'm DONE!!! I can finally become reaquianted with sleep! Summer vacation is a beautiful thing. Anyways... Kudos go to a whole whack-load of people whom I am too lazy to name. It seems that I made it too easy... Must make it harder. Anyways.. Here are your clues. 1) Two of the words have two letters. 2) The first word is a common pronoun starting with H. 3) The middle word is a contraction.

Hope that makes it difficult enough for all you puzzle people out there. With love, as always, Jiia.

* * *

"Very well."

And with that, the shadow stepped right through the silvery surface of the mirror.

Without any sort of hesitation at all, he circled around to the side, reaching behind him to draw the twisted, rusty blade from the black-and-silver scabbard strapped to his back.

I could do nothing but watch as he raised the demonic blade, poised to drive the dulled edge straight through my broken heart.

Just as the blade was about to put an end to my misery, the dark king's husky voice echoed throughout the silent chamber.

"No, le rae'nuot. Not like that."

Link pulled up his blade, looking at his new master and blinking those horrible eyes.

"Then how, Master? What would you have me do?"

Ganondorf smiled. And then… He let his eyes slide down, red orbs hungrily devouring every inch of flesh and making me just want to die from the shame of it. His dark tongue darted out over his shadowed lips, and every dark fantasy I had glimpsed behind his eyes came into sharp, terrifying focus.

"I want you to give him exactly what he wants, Link.

"I want you to fulfil his darkest, most unwilling dreams."

* * *

Le Rae'nuot- my creation. If you haven't figured certain things out by now, well… That's just too bad for you. 


	19. Chapter 19 He can't be

_Apologies all around, to all and sundry, for the terrible lack of updating which has afflicted me recently. Life snuck up on me, and the wonderful world of fanfiction fell temporarily by the way-side. Hopefully, I should start writing again soon. As it is, I have more than enough chapters to keep you people sated. Unfortunately, I can offer no prizes for the last round, mostly because I have lost them. Indeed, I have lost a good deal of things, having gotten a new computer and neglecting to be smart enough to back everything up right. So I have no more emails, no more guesses, no more nothing, and several stories have gone missing, including a couple of chapters from this. Don't fear, for I have everything backed up somewhere... I just need to figure out where that is. Anyways... I would like to hold another little vote to help me decide my new computer's name. I'm torn between Hubert, Mortimer and Edward the Second. Any input would be welcome._

_With love and many heartfelt apologies, Jiia._

_Oh yes! The clues for the next round. 1) Only one word has more than two letters. 2) One of the words is 'he'. 3) The first word begins with B. _

_Good luck to you all!_

* * *

The darkened hero frowned, a flicker of confusion dancing across his emotionless eyes. He seemed about to ask what, exactly, his master wanted him to do, but thought better of it. 

He turned his crimson eyes to me, shivering and pathetic, tied up in a bloody bed of silk and velvet. He examined me once more, as if my "unwilling dreams" were written upon the surface of my skin.

His frown deepened, and he looked back to his master.

But his master was no longer there.

The room was empty, but for the mirror and this grotesque bed.

And yet…

He was in here somewhere.

I could feel him watching.

The shadow sighed, and it was such a familiar sound that I almost, almost cried. He slid the dark blade back into the sheath and once again fixed me with his gaze.

"So…" His strange voice echoed in the quiet. "What exactly are the dreams I'm meant to fulfill, eh? Any ideas?"

Even as I heard the words, images began to flash, unbidden, through my mind. Images of the last time I had been with my hero. Images of flesh on flesh and the fantasy, the expectation of shining acts committed under the light of the moon.

Link's transformed eyes widened, until they were little more than bright embers lost amid a sea of white ash. It was as if he could read my mind. As if he had once again looked through my eyes and seen the same pictures I did. Seen through my eyes, as I had once seen through his.

"Oh…" He muttered. "So that's what you want…"

"I can do that."

* * *

_Heavy-duty yaoi begins in the next chapter, folks. If you don't know what it is, or don't like it, don't read it._


	20. Chapter 20 But he is

Ha! Sweetness for semi-regular updates! My computer has been told to make me update this every Wednesday, but such things are never really certain, especially with me. Hurrahs go to all the people who won and got your fabulous prizes, and swift kicks to the shins go to those who won forgot to leave me their emails, thus getting nothing. Please remember to leave them, or at least be logged in. I can't do anything if I have no way of contacting you. Sorry for the shortness of this, by the way. Many other chapters are finished, and they are mostly much longer than this one. The first real half of the lemon is three pages long. It's also seven chapters away, so please be patient with me, kay? Sweetness.

Clues for the next chapter are... 1) The middle word has seven letters, and has a suffix. 2) The last word is four letters long, starts with f, and is NOT what you're all thinking, you dirty-minded fiends. 3) It reminds me rather strongly of things like 'Saw', 'Friday the Thirteenth', 'Halloween', etc.

Good luck, one and all. With love, Jiia

* * *

My heart stopped.

I stared at him. At Link. My Link. The one I loved, the one I needed, the one I wanted with every fibre of my being. Only he wasn't my Link anymore. He was Ganondorf's Link. He was lost to me.

His image began to shimmer, then blurred into a black shadow amidst a sea of blood-stained gold. My tears left burning trails down my cheeks, and for the first time in my life, I wished I had my mask. I felt the edge of the bed dip down as the shadow clambered up next to me, reaching one gauntleted hand out to brush the fiery tears from my face.

I turned my head away.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" Ganondorf's Link asked, letting his hand drop down onto the plush sheets. "You want to be with me."

"Not you." I whispered the trembling in my voice replaced with a terrible, hopeless tone.

He frowned. I couldn't see him, but I could almost _hear_ his expression change.

"What do you mean, not me? You want Link. I _am _Link."

I let myself sigh and closed my crimson eyes. The eyes that were now the same shade as his.

"No you aren't. Not any more."

He paused. I could here him breathe, slowly, evenly, as if he were not affected by what he was about to do to me at all. And then the bed shifted again, and I felt his corpse-cold fingers take a hold of my chin, and then his lips were on mine and I wanted nothing more than to die.

* * *

Ok… Maybe the hardcore yaoi will be in the next chapter… Eek… Lemons are scary!! 


	21. Chapter 21 My deepest fear

Whoot! Another regular update! Who is teh master? I am teh master. Anyways, this is the first of the "Lemon Avoidance" chapters. Written mostly because the Sheik in my mind refused to be the Uke. This issue has now been fixed. This chapter and the next will be rather important, however, as they mention things that I'll use later in the story.

Apparently my clues are too hard. No one got it. Most people didn't even guess. So I shall try and give easier clues from now on, kay? Sweet.

1) The words are arranged in order of shortest to longest, with the shortest being three letters and the longest being six. 2) The first word starts with a y. 3) The last word is something I would like to do whilst in assembly. (Doritos-chan, you know what I'm talking about.)

With love, Jiia

* * *

His lips were cold. Death cold. Soft, just like I remembered. They were just as gentle as they had been, just as tender. But before… Before, there had been love hiding behind them.

Now there was nothing.

I tried to fight against him, but it was futile. Link had always been strong, and whatever strange process the evil king had put him through to change him so had only increased that strength. And, of course, I had never been particularly muscular to begin with. I was a lover, not a fighter.

And, of course, I was still tied up.

His mouth dominated mine, reminding me faintly of that first kiss. He was so confident, so sure, completely secure with what he was doing. Just like before.

It was deliberate, I realized. He really had seen my thoughts, my memories, and was imitating himself. He was trying to replicate the feeling by replicating the actions.

It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same at all. There was no passion behind this distorted Link's kiss. He was doing it because he had been told to do it, and that was all that mattered to him.

His tongue prodded against my lips, not quite asking for entrance, but not quite commanding it either. I refused him. He let loose a strange, feral growl and dug his chill fingers into the hinge of my jaw, forcing me to open or pop my jaw out of its socket.

The taste of honey was still there. But… The spice had gone away. What had made it warm, delicious, so incredibly good… It had faded and left behind only the sickly sweet tang of pure sugar. It made me want to gag.

Biting down occurred to me, of course. I seriously considered it. But I couldn't do it. Even if Link had been irrevocably changed, he was still Link.

I still loved him.

I let him ravage my mouth. I let him sweep his disgustingly cold tongue over my teeth, my tongue, the roof of my mouth. He let loose another growl and slid his hand from my face. His fingers trailed shudders down my chest before tugging his belt loose and tossing it out of the way. He broke the kiss to pull his black tunic and the white shirt beneath it up over his head. I took the brief respite as an opportunity to inch away, pulling myself up against the headboard as far as I could without seriously injuring myself. He was on me again in moments, taking the change in stride by moving his attentions to my neck.

I have never liked people touching my neck. It is the most sensitive part of my body. Besides, well, the obvious. But it's never been sensitive in that particular sense. Having someone even breath on me always fills me with such an irrational terror that I almost invariably jump away. I can restrain the reflex if I have to, but I can never suppress the feeling of fear that sets my insides to squirming.

And that was with a breath. Link was practically eating me alive.

I couldn't get away.

I felt the panic welling up inside me and fought desperately to keep it under control. Ganondorf wanted me to panic. He wanted me to be afraid. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. But the feeling of those deathly lips sucking and biting and that icy tongue…

I was going to go mad.

My control slipped. A terrified whimper escaped my lips. Link seemed to interpret that as a sign to up the ante and proceeded to sink his teeth into the crook of my neck. I felt the skin break. I felt the blood trickle down my shuddering flesh and turn the burgundy sheets black.

I couldn't help it.

My control broke.


	22. Chapter 22 You can't escape

Grrness... Nobody got the title again! Oh well. I tried to make it easier, but... I guess I didn't do it enough. Anyways, this is yet another one of my "Avoiding the big, scary lemon" chapters. Pretty short. Sorry about that. .' Anyways, the clues for the next chapter are... 1) The first word begins like the first word in this sentence, but is longer. 2) The second word begins with an n and has seven letters. 3) The last word has four letters, and starts with an l.

Hope those ones are better than the last ones!

With love, Jiia

* * *

The sound of my scream was deafening, even to me. The terror took over and my body just _reacted,_ wrenching control away from my rational mind entirely. My legs came up against my chest, until I was balled up as tightly as the restraints around my wrists would allow. I planted my feet against his ribcage and _pushed_. Link tumbled backwards, hands still pressed over his sensitive ears. He went right off the edge of the bed and fell against the mirror, knocking it over with a shattering clang.

Without even thinking about it, I forced my thumbs out of the sockets. The silken chords slid easily off my broken hands. Within moments, I was up and running, not even bothering to look for the door. The walls were stained glass. I could go right through them.

I had the sense to barrel through the glass shoulder first, keeping my head turned to avoid getting shards of broken glass in my eyes. I half expected the ground to disappear beneath my feet, sending me plummeting down to impale myself on one of the twisted towers of Ganon's castle. But, to my surprise, the polished stone felt exactly the same as it had in the other room.

I looked back up, trying to find an exit that did not involve crashing through windows.

I froze in my tracks.

A red bed sat in the center of the room. A broken mirror lay at the foot. Across the way, the golden glass had been shattered, revealing another room beyond, another room with an identical red bed and an identical broken mirror, and an identical naked back bleeding and broken and covered in shards.

My back.

The shadow sighed. He was sitting on the bed, pulling a piece of the mirror out of his arm.

"Did you really think it would be that easy? Face it, bucko. You can't escape."

He slid off the bed, tossing the bloody shard into the heap of shattered silver at the foot of the bed. He sauntered towards me, putting his arms around my waist before I could even think to run.

The strange features of his familiar face looked down at me, and he smiled. A smile that was all too similar to that of his new master.

"You might as well enjoy it."

And then he sank his teeth back into the broken flesh of my neck, and I screamed.


	23. Chapter 23 There's nothing left

Yet another "avoiding the lemon". Don't worry, I believe it's only two more before I finally said "Screw this, I'm gonna frickin' write that damn thing!"

Please forgive me for my Sheik abuse, by the way.

Some of your reviews were highly amusing! Little Miss Spookiness, I do believe that your guesses made me laugh so hard I ruptured something. Your nemisis Link... I don't know why but I was all Mental picture of Link cosplaying as Darth Maul. It cracked me up. Nuitari Aquarius, yours amused me as well. And yes, this is the part where I say "no, you're wrong." Link is totally NOT a vampire, just a sadistic bastard who's all... "Hey, me sucking on your neck bugs you! Let's cause you pain!" I'm sorry for the confusion, by the way, to all those people who guessed the first word was "you" or "you're." I mean in the sentence, not the chapter title. I'll try to be clearer from now on.

Teh clueage for the next chapter... 1) the first word is a common two-letter pronoun. 2) The second word is three letters and is in the first sentence of this chapter (Not the author's note- the actual chapter.). 3) The third word has four letters and starts with a letter that is phonetically similar to the first letter in my name.

Hope that's somewhere in between mind-bendingly hard and stupifyingly easy.

With much love to you all, Jiia.

* * *

I was back on the bed. 

I wasn't even sure how I got there. I just was.

Link was on top of me again. He hadn't even bothered to tie me up. There was no point in trying to run.

There was nowhere to go.

There was nothing I could do to stop what he was going to do to me. I screamed till my throat went raw, pounded my fists against his undead chest, fought with every secret technique, every primal instinct, until I was too tired to fight any more.

And he let me. He pinned me down to the soft velvet and he let me attack him with everything I had, smiling down at me like a tolerant father smiles at an angered child. My blows didn't bother him. They just bounced off. They didn't even leave bruises.

And then, when I could force myself to do nothing more than lie on the bloody fabric and pant, he leant down and pressed his lips to mine in a mockery of a lover's kiss.

Some small part of him seemed to still possess some small measure of mercy. He placed only the gentlest of kisses upon the lurid red marks on my neck, as if apologizing for them. He slid down lower, licking his way along my collar bone and dipping that icy tongue into the hollow of my throat.

He continued to move lower, leaving a trail of cold down my chest. I let my eyes slip shut. I didn't want to watch him… You know.

But with my eyes closed… With my eyes closed, my mind was free to wander. And then, suddenly, without any warning what so ever, his tongue was hot against my skin, and his hand was like fire as it slid down my side, and I knew what hell truly felt like.

My broken voice rasped out a strangled moan as his burning tongue traced the edges of my scar, just as hot as the metal which originally made them. I felt him smile against the fluttering muscles of my chest, and inside my traitorous mind, it was golden.

"I think I remember these…" He whispered into my skin, one smouldering hand sliding over the reddened flesh. "They're more sensitive than the other parts of your body, aren't they?"

He paused, and I could _see_ the diabolical expression slipping over his features, even with my eyes screwed tight.

"I wonder… How sensitive are they?"

And then, to my surprise, I heard the distinctive sound of _my_ knives being drawn from _my _bracers.

I didn't even have time to process what that meant before the cold metal bit into my skin.


	24. Chapter 24 He was gone

Eep... This is so short! I'm sorry! And I'm also sorry to all the people who got the title and got no reward. I have been sick and my teachers are all sadists. I have no time, at all. In fact, this is being updated whilst I simultaneously eat breakfast, get dressed, comb my hair and do homework. Hopefully the world shall become more normal soon, and I can send you all your just rewards.

Next chapter- 1) The first word is the same as in this title. 2) The second word has four letters and starts with an L. 3) The third word has two letters and is in the fifth sentence of this chapter.

See you all next week!

With love, Jiia

* * *

To my knowledge, I have only cried twice in my life. The last time, well… You all remember that. The first time around, I was nine years old and Etin had just told me that my parents were never coming home. Ever since then… I had been the stoic little warrior I needed to be. I'd broken bones, ripped off skin, punctured a lung during the course of my training, and never once did I shed a tear.

I was crying now.

The sobs tore themselves out of me in great, heaving gasps, tearing at my throat like I was breathing out shards of the broken mirror. Not because of the pain, mind you. I could deal with pain. At least, the physical kind.

Only now was it actually sinking in.

Only now did I begin to believe in what had happened.

Only now did I truly lose hope.

He was gone.


	25. Chapter 25 He left me

More angst. More horrible angst. More apologies for not sending people things. I will get there eventually. But for now I am suspending the contest, until I get my life under control and can spend more than two seconds updating. Please forgive me.

With love, Jiia

* * *

He left me.

He left me all alone. He abandoned me when I needed him most. He gave up, he gave in, he let Ganondorf take him and break him and make him into this thing, this horrible thing, licking the blood off my chest like some kind of demonic dog. He's supposed to be the Hero of Time. He's supposed to be brave. He's supposed to be selfless. He's supposed to save people.

Why can't he save me?

I've read about him all my life. The prophesized Hero, brought down by the Goddesses themselves. A holy creature. The epitome of everything good and decent in this world. I didn't believe that such a thing could be possible, until I saw him standing in that beam of light. I didn't believe that there could be something so good and so pure.

And now, and my viridian hero sucks the lifeblood right out of my veins, right out of my very heart, I begin to think that maybe I was right.

Ganondorf is powerful, but he is not a god. He can destroy, certainly, and nourish the evil in another's veins. But he cannot create it. That is why the likes of Link and Zelda and the sages are immune to his efforts. He cannot put evil into the heart of another. Only make it grow.

And if there were ever a thing in this Goddess-forsaken world that could be called evil, this was it.

Memories began to flicker over my eyelids once more, flitting by like moths around a flame. A kiss, full of unnatural confidence. Fingers, lips, too rough, too harsh, leaving bruises I could still feel.

That moment, right when he first kissed me. That moment of uncertainty, bent in half over a man I should have had no problems trusting.

Ganondorf didn't put this new evil into my love.

It was already there.


	26. Chapter 26 I hate him

And the lemony goodness begins. Things are still hectic, but they are looking up. I'm starting to write again, which is good... Although I haven't worked on this particular story in ages. There are still at least four chapters to go, though, so it should be all good. Eep... I still haven't sent anything to anyone! I'm so sorry! There is an incalculable number of emails in my inbox waiting to be read. It frightens me every time I look. O.O Anyways, the next chapters are going to get pretty graphic, so be warned. This isn't stuff for tha kiddies, ya know. The main body of the lemon is still four chapters away, but there is some pretty serious action goin' on. I'm slightly worried about getting kicked off for inappropriateness. Oh yeah, and there is language. Bad language. The kind that makes my Mormon friends swoon. Don't sue me or flame me or anything.

* * *

He pauses. Looks up, into my eyes. Starts to smile, blood on his lips, the same colour of his eyes. 

Stops.

I can feel it pouring out of me. The hatred. The sheer, uncontrollable rage. My hands are fisting in the sheets, knuckles white, trembling like a pair of keese in a hurricane.

I loved him.

And he betrayed me.

"Good." The shadow smirked. "Kitty's come out to play."

Within the blink of an eye, I had the familiar handle of my knife back in my hand and the blade pressed none-to-gently against Link's moonshine throat.

Within half that time, his hand slithered between my legs and wrapped his blade-calloused fingers around a certain part of my anatomy I wasn't quite ready to sacrifice.

"Drop it, Kitten." Link purred, his voice just as dark as his eyes. "Unless you want to get spayed, of course."

My fingers tightened around the hilt of my knife. So did his. Painfully so.

I winced and let the knife fall from my hand. He caught it in mid air, with, unfortunately, his unoccupied hand.

He tossed the blade off to the side. I heard it skitter across the marble floor, far out of reach. If only I knew where he had pulled the thing out of in the first place… But no, I had to close my eyes and swoon like a damsel in distress.

"Thank you." Link whispered, leaning forward to blow the words gently in my ear. "This would have been a lot less fun, for both of us."

"Go fuck yourself." I hissed back, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip as his hand tightened spasmodically.

"No," The shadow pulled back and grinned devilishly. "I think I'd rather fuck you instead."

And then his fingers loosened just enough for him to slid his hand along my length, and the muscles holding my head up remembered how tired they were, and I couldn't help but to sink against him.


	27. Chapter 27 Evil and All

Hey, everyone! It's Jiia! I'm not dead! I'm so incredibly sorry for this absurdly long hiatus. Mostly because I said flat out that I would keep updating regularly and then totally didn't. I've got some explaining to do, and some unfortunate news that I must regretfully inform you of.

I'm just going to get right down to it. I'm going to take a break from fanfiction. Yes, you heard me right. Er... Read me right. I've already stopped writing and updating, and plan to maintain this until I work some stuff out. Therefore, this is going to be the last chapter you see for a while. Depending on how well my masterful plan works, this might be the last chapter I ever post. I'll undoubtedly continue to write it for as long as I live, but I need to get to a point in my life where I'm confident enough in my own abilities that I don't need the approval of every single person on earth. That's really what fanfiction is for me, a way to validate my own existence, sad as that is. I need to change that.

In any case, I'm sorry to leave you all hanging like this. I hope to eventually finish all my stories, one of these days. Thank you all for sticking with me through all this, and I hope to talk with you all again someday.

With eternal love, Jiia

(By the way, no, I am not cruel enough to leave you without a lemon. I'm posting the entire thing now, so never fear. Your lemon is finally here!)

* * *

Everything went limp. Everything, of course, except what really mattered. What little blood that had escaped the carnage on my torso sped straight into my groin. Everything else got tingly and fuzzy, including my mind. My damaged throat let out a breathy gasp as his nimble fingers coaxed me into hardness. Sliding his other hand around behind my back, he lowered me onto the blood-stained sheets, as gentle as any lover. He lay propped on his ivory elbow above me, crimson eyes raking over my face, my mangled body, darkened by two different shades of lust. He ran his dark tongue over his bloody lips, flicking his sharp, almost vampiric canines with the tip.

"You smell good, Kitty..." He purred, running his hand over my leaking head. "You smell like blood... Death... Heh... Sex."

"Fuck you." I groaned, tilting my head back and closing my eyes so I didn't have to look at the feral gleam in his familiar foreign eyes.

"You should really stop using that word as an insult, Kitten." That dark tongue slid out again, lapping up the blood still seeping from one of my many wounds. "It's giving me ideas."

Without warning, he snapped his hips down, and I can feel him through the thin fabric of his leggings, hard as stone, and hot, hotter than I could ever have imagined. All of him was cold except there. It was as if all his body heat had concentrated in one spot. Even through the fabric, it was almost hot enough to burn.

I let out an involuntary whimper, squirming underneath him in a vain attempt to get away from that painful warmth. He just chuckled, the chill of his breath against my chest making me shudder.

"Can you still move your arms, Kitten?" He rained a shower of kisses across the torn remains of my old scars, tongue darting out to taste my more recent pain. "Or have I hurt you too badly?"

"I'm fine." I growled between grit teeth, forming my hand into a fist and jamming it against his marble stomach as added proof.

He just laughed, stopping his languid stroking and ghosting his fingertips along my uneven flesh.

"That's good. Now, why don't you help me with these stupid tights?"

I raised my head, shooting him a poisonous look. He grinned at me, eyes wide and innocent. It was a hopeful grin, bright, cheerful. It was an expression I'd seen before, many times. It was part of what had drawn me to him in the first place, that hopeful smile. It had seemed so beautiful to me then. Golden hair and golden skin and a smile as bright as the sun. He was pure and he was free, happy in a way I knew I could never be. And now I was seeing it again. It was the same smile, somehow, untainted by Ganondorf's evil. It was his smile.

Link.

My Link.

I forced my eyes shut. It was so easy to hate him. I had to hate him. If I didn't hate him, then that meant that I hadn't loved him. He was everything he wasn't, and yet he was everything he had always been, and I wasn't sure who he was anymore. What had changed, really? His hair? His eyes? The shade of his skin? Those things didn't matter, not really. They were insubstantial. He was still attractive, even now, just in a different way. He had called Ganondorf 'my lord', but if he was in the Dark King's service that would make sense. He had hurt me. Caused me pain and taken pleasure from it. Lapped at my blood and moaned.

But who was I to say that wasn't the way he'd always been? I didn't know him at all. I'd never known him at all. I'd been in love with an idea, not a man. Maybe this was who Link really was.

But I'd seen into his mind. I'd seen into his thoughts, and I had_known_ he loved me. I had _known_ it, as much as I knew that I loved him. I had felt his shock and his anger at the ancient marks upon my chest. The idea that I had been hurt in such a way had caused him pain. The idea that I had been marked...

That I had been marked.

The crest of the Royal Family. The crest he had cut out of my skin with my own knife. He wanted it gone, wanted it off me. He took it away from me, the reminder of my loyalties, and replaced it with a reminder of his own.

I was his.

For the rest of my life, I was his. I would always be his. No one would ever mark me again. They wouldn't be able to. There was nowhere left for them to cut.

"Kitten..." He whispered in my ear, and I could no longer remember the difference between the old voice and the new. "I asked for your help. Won't you help me, Kitten?"

My hands moved to his sides, seemingly of their own accord. They felt like they should have been shaking, but they weren't. His body was cold, so cold, but then again, so was I. I slid my hands down to his hips, to the waistline of his leggings. I felt his breath quicken against my skin, and almost smiled. No amount of punching and kicking and screaming had changed him in the slightest, and yet this little touch did so much.

I let my eyes slide open again. His head was bowed, the tips of his dark hair soft against my skin. I could just see him through the black veil, mouth open and eyes half-lidded in a strange sort of tense expectancy. I watched a tremor go down his arching spine and found myself absently wondering what his pale moonbeam skin would taste like.

It was wrong, and it was evil, and I couldn't bring myself to give a damn.

I slid my fingers beneath the waist of his leggings, pushing them down as far as my tired arms could reach. I ignored his quiet hiss as the fabric stretched painfully around him. It probably would have been easier for us both if I'd bothered undoing the laces first, but I honestly didn't care.

He somehow managed to squirm the rest of the way out, kicking the fabric off the bed as if it had committed some sort of unthinkable sin. All the while he was careful not to touch me, to restrict the contact to his hand on my hardness and his hair on my chest and my hands on his slender hips. It amused me in a dethatched sort of way. It seemed strangely shy. As if he were afraid of what might happen if we touched by accident. Maybe he was. Having my hands on him, touching him, seemed to make him oddly nervous. He refused to raise his head and look at me. I thought I saw him bite his lip from behind the shadowy curtain of hair he had hidden himself behind.

It was almost... Cute.

The pants were finally away and forgotten, and there was nothing between us but air and whatever invisible boundary Link had decided to erect. And yet he did nothing. He just sat there, hiding behind his hair, breath steady but decidedly faster than it should have been. It was like, having gotten this far, he suddenly had no idea what he was supposed to do.

I felt my lips curl into a smile, and was far too tired to be shocked. One of my fingers slowly started to move, almost a twitch, stroking his silk-soft skin. He broke the steady rhythm of his breath, almost, but not quite, gasping. I stopped, and he let out his breath in a long, quivering shudder.

"What?" I asked him, whispering into the cool softness of his ebony locks. "Does that bother you?"

"N-no, of c... ah..." He hissed, almost moaning as I slid my hand down his side, fingers trailing along the curve of his rear. "D-don't... Just... Don't."

"Why not?" My voice sounds like his. Hollow. Dead. Empty. "This is so much fun."

And then I move my hand around the hard muscle of his thigh, and let my cold fingers slide around the only warmth in the entire world.

As he lets out a strangled cry, pressing his forehead into my bruised and battered shoulder, I realize something that should have either been revolting to the point of near suicidal self-hatred or surprising, and was neither.

I wanted him, just the way he was, evil and all.

Holy shit, was that a long chapter... Anyways... Meep! Sheik has gone evil! That was NOT part of the plan... But every time I tried to write the rape scene, he always found a way to prolong the inevitable, and it was getting rather ridiculous. Apparently, my Yaoi muses can deal with bondage and bloodplay and all manners of what-have-you, but run screaming in the face of non-con. Who would'da thunk it, right? And... Link has suddenly become a total uke. Not sure how I'm gonna deal with that... Although it makes for an interesting dynamic.


	28. Chapter 28 I Need Him

His breathing was ragged. He choked on the air as if he wasn't sure if he wanted to breathe in or out, as if the whole process was suddenly very confusing. I could feel the quick, chaotic throb of his pulse beneath my fingers, along my palm, through my whole body. His entire frame shuddered and shook, like some strange albino leaf in a gentle summer breeze. The hand that gripped me slid away, fisting in the sheets and providing him with at least a little more stability.

"S-stop..." He whimpered, voice thick with a need he apparently wanted to deny.

"You didn't." I hissed back, tightening my grip and jerking him mercilessly, a cold thrill of triumph shooting through my veins at his raw, tortured cry.

"You n-never ah-asked." He stammered, shoulders shaking in a dry, tearless sob.

I shoved myself back into the mattress, my free hand pushing against his shoulder and forcing him up, away from me. I don't let go of him, but that hardly seems to matter in comparison of with the total insanity of what he's just said.

"Excuse me!?" I gaped at him with wide eyes, caught between fury and shock.

"You never told me to stop." He gasped, looking down at me through half-lidded eyes. "You screamed and you fought, but you never once said 'stop'."

A million thoughts raced through my mind. Surely I had said...? Of course I did, I had to have... And yet I hadn't. I searched my memory, tried to remember crying out the obvious phrase. I couldn't recall saying it. Not once. It was impossible, unbelievable... And true. I really hadn't ever asked him to stop, not even when he was peeling off my skin.

"What if I had? Would you have stopped?"

For the first time in a long, long while, our eyes met. His eyes were so large, even half closed. Shadowed by his lashes, they darkened to burgundy, no longer the colour of blood but rather of dying roses, wine in the moonlight. Even clouded by his need, they were still so clear. Dark rubies set into ivory flesh.

For the first time, I looked at them and didn't remember the lost sapphires.

His tongue slid over his pale, rose petal lips. This time, it wasn't a gesture meant to seduce or scare. It betrayed nothing but nervousness, a strange, irrational fear that I could relate to, but not understand.

"I don't know if I could." He answered honestly, his eyes never leaving mine.

I felt myself smile. My free hand slid over his shoulder, pulling him down on top of me once more, revelling in the icy pain of his perfect flesh pressing against the ragged ribbons of my chest. Full body contact, skin on skin, cold and warm and so very good. I pressed my lips against the perfect shell of his ear and whispered, little more than breath.

"I'm not going to bother to try."


	29. Chapter 29 I Am Him

He let out a keening cry, almost before I moved his hand back to his side and rolled my hips, pressing heat to heat and hard to hard. I did it again, and again, the burn of the wounds criss-crossing my chest and the jagged cuts left behind by my ill-advised trip through the stained glass doing less than nothing to dampen the incredible feel of his body against mine.

And then he was moving down against me, jerkily at first, unintentional, clumsy, and so good it _hurt_. He sobbed into my throat, and suddenly it was me, the rapist, the terrible villain who took from him what he hadn't wanted to give. He sobbed, and he cried, and his tears were colder than ice, and _I loved it_.

I loved it.

I rolled us over, pushed him into the sheets where I had lain, straddled his slender hips and pinned him down with the weight of my body. He hiccupped, eyes wide with shock and that same wonderful irrational fear. He was cute, innocent, a red-eyed child in the body of a man who _wanted_ and _needed_ and was afraid of the darkness flowing through his veins like liquid fire. He was what he should have been, what I had expected him to be, that moonlit night that seemed so long ago.

I leant forward and let my breath ghost over his parted lips, a shadow of a kiss. He didn't dare move. I had him trapped, more so than I had ever been. There was nothing he could do but lie there and take whatever I wanted to dish out. He was at my mercy.

I bit his trembling lip, just hard enough to hurt. His breathless moan was almost non-existent. I felt it rather than heard it, a tremor against my lips.

He wanted me. I knew it, but he wasn't quite certain. He hadn't quite figured it out yet.

Well, he always had been a little slow.

I finally pressed my lips to his, slowly rolling my hips down at the same time. His mouth fell open in a shuddering moan, and I slid my tongue inside. Cold, sweet, sharp teeth and writhing tongue and his moan so deep and so loud that I felt it vibrating my vocal chords and bringing forth its twin. I kiss him, deep and slow and sloppy, taking whatever I want and smirking against him as he offers me everything. His trembling arms slip around my neck, trying to pull me closer as if he were trying to force our faces together like mismatched pieces of a puzzle.

It seemed to me that we already fit together pretty well.

The world dimmed and blurred, until all that was left was me, him, us, and the earth-shattering rhythm. Pain, pleasure, none of it mattered. It was all the same, anyways. His fingers dug into the open wounds on my back, and I moaned. I bit down on the hard rosy flesh of his nipple and he cried. There was no magical communion, no sharing of souls or entwining of spirits. We were connected by nothing but flesh, and yet that was more than enough. The memory of his harsh sun faded and disappeared in favour of this infinitely softer moon.

_Link_, I whispered inside my mind, and saw not gold, but black.

"Link", I gasped into the chill heat of his mouth, and thought not of blue, but red.

"LINK!" I screamed into the bloody shadows of the golden room, and came to the image of a shadowy reflection sobbing his release to whoever was watching behind the yellow glass.

As I collapsed atop of him, my last ounce of energy spent along with my seed, already slipping into the welcome arms of sleep, I thought I heard somebody laugh.

* * *

Goodbye, my darlings. May we meet again!

With love, Jiia


	30. Chapter 30 Cause and Consequence

Hey, everyone. I'm back. Finally. I don't know for how long, or how regularly, but... I'm really hoping to get back in the swing of things, so to speak.

I'd like to thank everyone who gave me their support and expressed concern for my personal well-being. I love you all, and I want to let you know that your words were part of what helped me get my life back on track. I've still got some problems that I need to work out, but I'm finally starting to move forward instead of falling backwards. I'm going to University now, for starters, living in Residence. It's pretty awesome, although there are some drawbacks. (Girl in the room next to me, if you're reading this, shut up or I'll buy you a freakin' ball gag. And boy bopping the girl in the room next to me? She's cheating on you.) I'm going to be doing some writing for the school paper, and they've agreed to post my comics in it. That's a large chunk of my time right there, not to mention homework. But I'm going to try and keep as busy as possible, so I'll probably have at least a couple of hours for fanfiction or my own personal writing.

Speaking of which, I'm currently in search of a manga artist to collaberate on a little project I've been working on for about a year. And when I say little, I mean that the first five books are already written, and there is no end in sight. So if you're interested, or if you know someone who is, give me a shout at keep in mind that this IS going to be sent to a publisher, and should therefore be of professional quality.

As for this chapter... I wrote it a while ago, about a month into my hiatus. The story's taken... a bit of a turn for the silly. But I like it too much to scrap, so just run with it, ok? There will be more angst, I promise you.

With love, Jiia.

* * *

When my tired eyes finally slid open and I rejoined the world of the living, there were several things that were decidedly different from the way I had left them.

First of all, I was under the covers instead of on top of them. The world was warm and fluffy and as close to heaven on earth as it was possible for it to be.

The pure bliss of being warm and comfortable was dampened a little by the second different thing. I was alone. Link was nowhere to be seen.

In fact, all evidence of what had happened before I drifted off had disappeared. The mirror was gone, and the shattered pane of stained glass had somehow been repaired without a trace. The sheets had been changed, the black splotches of my blood replaced by an unchanging ocean of red silk and satin.

Even my wounds were gone.

The ones on my back and shoulder, those brought about by my escape attempt, had left no sign of ever being there. The marks on my chest had become pale scars, obvious only because they disrupted the darker flesh of the mangled crest. It was no natural healing, I knew. Magic had been used to mend my broken body. Whose, I couldn't, and didn't want to, say.

I reluctantly slipped out of the delicious warmth of the bed, almost stepping on a neat pile of clothing that had been left by the sideboard. It wasn't mine, but it was good enough. Boots, tight white leggings like those Link wore, and a strange sort of tunic that was more robe than shirt. It wrapped tight around my thin frame, secured in place by a simple sash at the waist. I almost laughed at the colouring of it. It was the same _royal_ blue of my uniform. Apparently no one had mentioned the meaning of that particular colour to Ganondorf.

I felt myself tense at the thought of the Dark King. I'd forgotten where I was, who this glittering golden room belonged to. In my contentment and in my pleasure I had forgotten the danger I was in. I sure as hell remembered now.

One of the panels seemed different than before. It took me a shamefully long time to notice the glittering golden doorknob now set into the shimmering frame. I cautiously began to turn it, trying to be ready for whatever horrors would undoubtedly lay behind the door.

I gathered my courage and threw it open, dropping into a ready crouch in case it had been booby trapped or there were a dozen Gerudo archers with their deadly arrows aimed where my heart would have been.

There weren't any archers. Or booby traps. Or horrors, for that matter. Unless you count horrible taste in upholstery.

It was a sitting room. An orangey-brown paisley sofa up against the far wall, a pair of miss-matched green wing backed chairs. In the corner, a little table the likes of which you usually found in the Castle Town's more popular outdoor cafes. There was even a tiny bookshelf, filled with meaningless little penny novels that were more for decoration than any real literary value. It was a room put together by a country rube desperate to show a level of class they didn't possess.

I blinked. Somehow, the idea of Ganondorf strolling through a shop and picking out all this awful furniture wasn't bizarre as it probably should have been. The flashy bedroom was more classically 'villainous', but the frightening normalcy of the sitting room was strangely appropriate. It was less 'Evil Overlord' and more 'Foreign Politician'. Like he was trying to fit into the Hyrulean standard but didn't have the first clue as to where to begin.

"Uh... Okay..." I straightened, looking around the strange room for a door of some kind and finding none.

"I know. Terrible, isn't it?" A deep female voice slid out from the shadows of the far corner like sand in the wind. "None of us has the heart to tell him. He thinks he's quite the little decorator."

I tried to react in some sensible way, but each of my automatic responses was foiled in some way or another. I had no weapons, and the door had apparently disappeared behind me, and there was nowhere to hide that didn't involve bringing myself closer to the dark-skinned woman leaning against the wall. I ended up just sort of randomly flailing about in shock while the strange woman laughed at me.

"Nyahahah... Where did you come from!? Who are you!? What the hell!?" I twitched randomly, belatedly realizing that I had curled up into some sort of twisted foetal ninja ball of terror and forcing myself to resume a more normal stance.

The woman tossed her head back and laughed, the strange orange stone set into her forehead glittering brightly. Her hair was a sort of bronzed red, falling almost to her slender waist. She was quite well endowed, that fact made obvious by the ridiculously skimpy clothes she wore. Her eyes were a deep red, darker than mine or Link's. She was Gerudo— one of Ganondorf's people.

"I've been here the whole time! It's your own damn fault if you didn't see me." She pushed away from the wall, sauntering towards me and holding out her hand in greeting. "The name's Nabooru, by the way. Nice ta meet'cha."

I cautiously took her hand, wary of poisoned needles between her fingers or other such nefarious objects that could be used to kill through a simple handshake. She just smiled at my hesitance, completely unconcerned. She seemed friendly enough, but that was no reason to let my guard down. I'd done that one too many times already.

"Sheik of the Sheikah."

Her fiery eyes lit up with amusement, her ever-present smile shifting into a bright grin.

"Sheik of the Sheikah? Whatever your parents were on when they named you, I want some."

I shot her a look. She just grinned at me, completely unaffected by my ire.

"Well, whatever, Mr. Sheik. I'm gonna go tell Avie to start cookin' you some of her famous sweet-potato stew. It'll perk you right up." She winked at me, then proceeded to saunter straight through the wall.

After making sure I couldn't replicate her exit, I sat down on the hideous couch and began to ponder her comment and the accompanying wink. I didn't feel like I needed to be 'perked up'. In fact, I felt a little edgy. The initial fear brought about by her sudden 'appearance' had tapered off and left me with a sort of nervous energy, an almost unbearable urge to just get up and_ move_. And besides, that wink had too much meaning behind it to be a simple gesture. She had been alluding to something, of that I was certain. To what, however, continued to escape me.

Perhaps she had been talking about last 'night', for lack of a better term. Someone had been watching us, that much was certain. I seemed to remember hearing somebody laugh, and while I was by no means certain, it had seemed a little too girly to have been Ganondorf. This Nabooru person had probably been with him on the other side of the golden glass, watching what we... What _I _did.

Well, that probably explained the wink. And quite possibly the 'perk me up' comment. If she was in the mood for a repeat performance, she might very well decide to slip some sort of Gerudo aphrodisiac into the stew. But seeing as how Link was still nowhere to be found, any danger to my health and mental well-being probably wouldn't be immediate.

Unless of course she wanted some for herself, in which case she would be sorely disappointed. The only person I planned on having sex with any time soon was my lovely little moonbeam.

I choked on nothing, fingers digging into the frightening upholstery.

_I did not just think that. That whole train of thought did not just happen._

What the hell had happened to my mind? I was a prisoner in Ganondorf's palace. I had only just recently been tied to his bed, ready to be raped by some twisted version of the man I thought I loved, and now I was calling him _moonbeam_ and contemplating how to turn down one of his horny minions. That was assuming, of course, that she was interested in me beyond my position as her king's prisoner. Which I had absolutely no reason to think beyond ridiculous meaning I'd read into what was probably a perfectly innocent wink.

There was a level of arrogance to those thoughts that I hadn't known I'd possessed. I distinctly recalled going through life continually frustrated by my own disappointing abilities, and here I was assuming that Nabooru wanted me for no real reason.

Something had changed in me that night. Something was different.

I was turning into Zelda.

"NOOOOOOOO!!"


	31. Chapter 31 What am I?

Hey, guys! I've decided, to hell with a schedule. I never follow it anyways, and it creates undue stress. So basically, I'm just gonna update whenever I finish a chapter. After saying this, when I finish three chapters in row... You get three fun-filled days of waiting. . Anyways... This chapter brings us back to the serious. And also heralds a major change in the way I'm going to write it, at least for now. This is actually the first chapter I've written in... Since I when on hiatus. Hope you enjoy!

Jiia

* * *

Something was happening to me.

Correction. Something had already happened to me.

I changed. I became something… Other than myself. I was someone, something different. Something I wasn't supposed to be.

I'd sworn a blood oath, before I was even born. I was a servant of the Royal Family. A tool. A sharp instrument with which to whack the Family's enemies. And we've always known that.

The Sheikah are a proud race, yes, but not of ourselves, per se. We're proud of our training, our talents, the results we achieve. We're even occasionally proud of our sorrows, out tragedies, our losses. The more we sacrifice, the better servants we are. That's what we're here for, after all. To lose so the Family won't have to.

But we're never really proud of ourselves. There's no room for an ego under a Sheikah cowl. Having a healthy respect for yourself makes it harder to throw your life away for someone you don't even know, and is therefore discouraged. We're just shadows, unimportant, unnoticed. We're nothing in comparison to those we serve.

Those we serve.

Who do **I **serve? The king is dead. And with Link… changed, Zelda doesn't stand a chance. Ganondorf will find her, eventually, and when he does, it's bye-bye-Princess. There had only ever really been a sliver of hope to begin with, and now that sliver had been crushed. All that lays ahead for the Royal Family's Hyrule is more darkness, more death. The era is over.

No more Royal family, no one for the Sheikah to serve. No one to cast the shadow. Nothing to block the light.

The crest is gone, turned into a meaningless mess of scars by my own knives. My obligation to it is gone.

I'm not a Sheikah anymore.

But then…

What am I?

This, apparently. A little arrogant, a little sarcastic, more than a little cruel. Same as I'd always been, really, under the mask of the good little boy.

After all, Ganondorf can't create evil. He can only nurture it.

Evil.

What a stupid word.

* * *

By the time the door burst open before an excited Gerudo woman bearing stew, he had changed.

He gave in to the darkness inside of him, the darkness of doubt and pain and fear. He thought he was being strong. He thought he was admitting the awful truth, allowing himself to become the monster he truly was. And maybe he was right. It didn't really matter. In the end, only one thing was certain.

He had lost.

And somewhere, just on the other side of Real, behind the stained-glass mirrors that border the world…

A woman laughed.


	32. Chapter 32 One of us

Yeargh!! Sorry, guys! I've meant to update, really, but I've been trying to get a chair in my room. Which would seem easy, especially since I already had the chair. But no. There must be forms and inspections and all sorts of other stupid things to make sure that my chair does not, in fact, burn down the whole damn building. Rargh. Also, Mr. I'm-Going-To-Have-Really-Loud-Sex-With-The-Girl-Next-Door-At-Three-In-The-Morning has been renamed "Horrific Breakup Guy". Three guesses as to why. And you know, I didn't even have to do anything. Mwahahaha. But yes.

Mwar har har, back to some sort of semblance of plot. Yeah. I've got to apologize, because these chapters aren't going to get much more interesting for a while. The next one is a history of Hyrule. Hurrah. But unfortunately, it's necessary to get some of the things going on. If you really have something against it, I guess you can skip it, but... You are NOT going to get why Shiek and Ganondorf are suddenly being buddies. Yeah. No. Anyways... Onwards!

With love, Jiia

* * *

"Wow. You must have been _real_ hungry." The red-head looked at him with one raised eyebrow, glancing down at the empty bowl in her hands.

"I haven't eaten in two days. Shut up." He glowered at her, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"Don't worry, it was meant as a compliment." Nabooru chuckled, shaking her head. "Most Ontvark don't get past their first spoonful. It's the spices. Sets their poor little heads on fire."

"Ontvark?" He frowned, watching the woman saunter towards the magical section of wall that seemed to operate by a process of selective osmosis. "Huh. There's a similar word in the Sheikah language. Otark. Mean's outsider."

"Of course." Nabooru grinned at him over her shoulder, even as she began to disappear through the 'wall'. "They used to be the same language, after all."

She disappeared before he could think of an intelligent response, laughing slightly manically at his obvious confusion.

Same language? Ridiculous. The Sheikah language was one of the best-kept secrets of the race. No outsider was allowed to learn it, not even the Royal Family. Since they had been taken from their homeland and bound into Hyrule's service, all those many centuries ago, the Language was one of the only aspects of the original Sheikah culture that remained to them. Almost everything else had been lost. Some of the old stories still remained, telling them of what had been taken from them, but they were only ever whispered, kept secret for fear of the wrath of the Hylian Gods. They did not appreciate people questioning their authority.

Still, there were some things that the Royal Family and their Triad couldn't hide. They couldn't hide the true nature of the temples, or the Sages, the priests and priestesses of the Old Gods. They couldn't stamp out the ancient rites of love and marriage, the smoky ceremonies for the dead. They couldn't stop the stories, stories of the Homeland, where the wind blew free across the sands and there was no one to serve. A wild land. A free land.

Could it possibly be…?

"Aha. Nabooru told me you were awake. To be honest, I didn't quite believe her." The voice from the shadows startled him out of his reverie, although he managed to maintain at least some of his dignity and refrain from hiding behind the hideous sofa.

"G-Ganondorf! Why did you bring me here?! Why are you doing this?!" He jumped to his feet, trying desperately to hide his instinctual fear of the man with blind rage.

"Well… Originally, I was just going to kill you." Ganondorf stalked over to one of the green chairs, taking an easy seat in the thing and smirking. "Not quickly, of course, that wouldn't be any fun at all."

"What changed your mind?" He found himself cautiously easing himself back onto the sofa, watching the dark king's every move.

"You called me "bardarn." Which wasn't very nice, by the way. You're really not my type." He laughed, a deep, solid belly laugh that somehow reminded the younger man of his father, in a disturbing sort of way.

"… I call you a pervert and you decide to have your minion rape me? Is that supposed to be ironic?" Leaning back against the couch, he crossed his arms before his chest.

"Not really. That wasn't my idea, by the way. To be honest, I just wanted to see what he'd do." Ganondorf shrugged, as if this whole fiasco were no big deal, just a minor blip in the course of his day. "And you, of course. I had to put you to the test, find out if you really were what I thought you were."

"And what would that be?" He was trying very hard to be angry, to hate the easy-going redhead before him. It should have been easy.

"One of us, of course." Ganondorf laughed again, leaning forward to clap him on the shoulder. "Welcome home, Brother."


	33. Chapter 33 The Supposed Truth

Whoot! Accomplishment! Two days in a row! Yeah!!

Hah hah... I lied. The next chapter is the history. Hah. Yeah.

With love, Jiia

* * *

Welcome home.

Brother.

When had he last heard these words? Had he ever heard these words? And now, here was this man, this king of evil, this enemy of the world, saying them so easily, smiling so warmly.

How could this be?

"I… I don't understand…" He found himself simultaneously going stiff and slack, leaning forward and drawing back.

"I kinda figured you wouldn't. It's been a long time. Almost a thousand years, in fact." The dark skinned man leant back in his chair, assuming the air of an experienced story-teller, more of a grandpa than an evil dictator.

"A thousand years? Since what? Hyrule hasn't even been around that long!" Fear, annoyance, curiosity, confusion… He wasn't sure what he felt any more. He just… Was.

"And that's exactly my point, little brother." Ganondorf grinned, not devilishly, not demonically. Rather cheerfully, actually. "Our people predate Hyrule. They're the Ontvark, after all. The outsiders. We were here before them, and if I have anything to say about it, we'll be here long after."

"But… You… They… How…?"

"I'll tell you, if you like." The king gestured lazily, as if this wasn't exactly what he wanted. As if he were doing the younger man a favour. "The true history of our people. Of your people. The true history of this 'perfect' land."

How could he possibly say no?


	34. Chapter 34 A History Lesson

Ah ha ha ha fire drills at five in the morning kill me now.

* * *

The Hylian Church would have you believe that everything began in Chaos. And in a way, it did. Before the age of the Goddesses, there was indeed a sort of chaos in the world. But not in the way they mean.

Before the Goddesses, there were many Gods, many pantheons, many faiths. You can see traces of them everywhere you go. In the temples and in the symbols and in the ways of the world. You've probably met some and don't even know it. Some aligned themselves with the Goddesses and survived that way. Others are hiding in other forms, waiting for the right moment to regain their rightful places in the world. You've probably met some, and don't even know it.

The point is, back then the land was wild, prosperous, free, full of different people and different customs and different ways before they showed up. It was chaotic, yes, but you were free. The whole world was free.

And then the Goddesses came down from who knows where and fucked it all up.

The Hylians used to be plains-dwellers, you know. They lived in tents and raised goats. There was a time when the Hylians were most well-known for their cheese. And then the Goddesses picked them as their chosen race. They started spreading, converting people. They started killing Gods.

They killed the forest gods first. They were the oldest, after all. The Wolves and the Boars and all the other little spirits. Soon, they were all gone. All but the Father Tree, who decided to do the bidding of the Triad in order to save the last little remnants of the Kokiri from their pogrom. He's gone now, of course. It was regrettable, having to destroy him, but there was no other choice. He would have mustered all the ghosts and spirits and such and caused a real mess for us. Not that I blame him. He was only doing what he thought was best for his people.

Jabu I have no sympathy for. Jabu is supposed to be the last of the free gods. As the Zoran patron deity, he's supposed to protect them. But he hasn't spoken in more than a century, since the war with the Hylians drove the Zora into their mountain stronghold. He's abandoned his people. Of course, they've abandoned themselves. They've been fighting for so long, they don't even remember who their enemy is. They don't remember living in the Lake. They don't remember being forced up the river until their last refuge was the Domain, their fortress. The whole damn race forgot their own history. They're in service to the Royal Family now, too. They still have their King, and they claim to be an independent nation, but that won't last. Give it a couple years, and they'll be little more than water-bearers.

And the Gorons… They used to be a warrior race. They used to be strong, way back when. They worshipped Volvagia once, the dragon living in their mountain. They built a temple to him, specifically to offer up sacrifice. They would never have allowed a human to set foot on their holy mountain and live, let alone set up camp at its base and start mining their ore. They were a little crazy, I admit, but they were strong. And then the Hylians showed up and told them their ways were wrong, that they were worshiping a false god. As if they had any right to decide what makes something a god.

I tried to remind them of what they were. First with the Dogongos, then with their own sleeping god. I thought that maybe, if they found themselves facing grave enough danger, one or two of them might remember their warrior blood. But no. They'd rather starve to death or let themselves be eaten than fight. They're a race of weaklings, at the Kingdom's beck and call.

And then there's us.

The Gerudo were the first great civilization. We were great, once. The desert wasn't like it was now. There was still desert, yes, but the river still flowed through it, and there were oases aplenty. We were the first great builders. We built palaces, temples, roads. You can still see some of them, crisscrossing Hyrule Field. We were wonderous weavers of cloth, silk and cotton and damask. We grew spices desired by nobility the world over. We were the kings of the old world.

But then the Hylians suddenly got themselves divine backing. They began to build their own cities, their own castles and settlements. They were quite fond of building bridges, something the Gerudo had never bothered to do. They devised a system of magical highways that could transport you from one place to another in the blink of an eye. I believe you know them. They took everything which had once just been _there_ and they put it into neat, orderly rows. They standardized everything, from language to currency to religion. The world got smaller, plainer, less interesting. They took the magic out of it, even in the days when that sort of thing was common.

The Gerudo wouldn't submit, though. We've always been a proud people. We couldn't be tricked like the Gorons, or slaughtered like the Kokiri, or pushed back into an isolated little hole like the Zora. Our lands were cut off from Hyrule by mountains and the canyon, and any normal advance would just result in a bunch of soldiers wandering around lost in the desert sands. We couldn't be beaten through normal means, and we were willing to take any measures necessary to keep the Hylians out, including aggressive retaliation. We were too big a threat to let alone, and too strong an enemy to defeat.

And then, a little more than a thousand years ago now, someone had an idea.

They snuck in into one of the settlements near the river in the dead of night. They went throughout the village and killed everyone they could find. Men, women, children, the elderly. It didn't matter. They took any young boys ten and under and brought them back to Hyrule as slaves. Some of them, at least. Others they raised as soldiers, servants to the Royal Family. Women started killing their own sons rather than one day see them fighting on the side of our enemy. Eventually, they just stopped having sons altogether.

That was how they got us. Without any males in the population, we had no choice but to submit to Hylian rule. I suppose they hoped to one day breed us out of existence altogether. Eventually, the Gerudo race will disappear forever, beaten by time.

And as for the others, the Gerudo sons who had been stolen from us… They lived out their lives. Some of them married Hylian women, bore children. Those children were raised in the same manner, as loyal servants of the Kingdom. So it continued on through the generations, until almost all aspects of their heritage had been lost.

Certain things stuck with them, though. The custom of covering one's face before strangers. Of binding the head and hands in cloth. Of bearing two names, one of which only those you love can know. The language, of course, although that's changed over the years.

And then there's a word, a name. What you and your people really are.

"Shaeik kah."

The Taken.


	35. Chapter 35 We are family

Back to the short chapters, I'm afraid. I've had it pointed out to me that the short chapters suck, and well... I'm sorry. But that's the way the come out, and if I put them in with another chapter then it'll just be... Not good. It just doesn't work. But since I'm updating way more frequently, it's all good. And I see no current reason that this trend should not continue, because I have finished up to chapter 43 and am still going strong. This whole thing is working out quite a bit better than I expected, actually.

AND NO, FOR ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN ASKING, THERE WILL NOT BE SHEIK/GANONDORF SLASH.

Ganondork may indeed have ulterior motives, but they have nothing to do with getting in Sheik's pants.

* * *

"We're… Gerudo?"

It didn't make sense. He'd studied the histories, he knew all the old stories. There had never been even the slightest hint…

But then again, why would there be? His entire culture was based on the lies of the Royal Family. They'd taken away everything.

He'd always known. Somehow, he'd always known. There was something missing, some key fact, something that would make everything else make sense. But he'd never looked for it, never thought that it could be…

"Well, not entirely." Ganondorf waved his hand dismissively, leaning back in his chair. "Like I said, there's been a quite a bit of mixing. And the Sheikah have had almost a hundred generations to become a people of their own. But yes, we share the same ancestors."

It made sense, in a strange sort of way. He'd always known his people had a secret history, but he thought he knew it. He thought he'd been told all the old stories, of the days before their slavery, before the old gods died and the new ones arrived. He thought he knew.

Apparently not.

"But… How do you know all this?" He found himself looking at Ganondorf, seeing the little similarities between them. The red eyes, the darker skin, high cheekbones… "How can you possibly know? I mean, it's been just as long for you as it has been for us, hasn't it? Haven't the stories been lost?"

Ganondorf looked at him for a long moment, smiling distractedly. He was wondering, he knew. Wondering if he could trust him, should trust him. Wondering what side he was on.

"This isn't something I should be telling you, but… We're blood brothers, after all. We are family." The king smiled at him, and he didn't even bother trying not to smile back.

"There's a library. Deep within the fortress. You could say it's the Gerudo's racial treasure."


	36. Chapter 36 The Gerudo Library

Ahah... Not really a plottish chapter. At the moment, at least. It's important later, though... so...

ARGH!! THIS IS MAKING ME SAD!! Every time I think I'm coming to the end of it, it pulls another plot twist out of it's ass.

* * *

He had assumed they were in the recreated Hyrule Castle. Turns out, they were deep within the Gerudo fortress, almost a mile deep into the high cliffs. That section had been crafted by magic out of the living rock, and as such, could only be transversed by the same means. There were no tunnels, no air shafts. There weren't even doors. Just paths of magical energy, winding their way through the rock like veins of precious ore.

Ganondorf assured him that he'd be able to learn to use them eventually. They operated on the same basic principle as the Hylian transportation songs, and he excelled at those, after all. He tried to point out that he couldn't actually _use_ the songs, but that didn't seem to matter at all.

For the moment, he was forced to piggyback on Ganondorf's trail, holding tight to the big man's hand as they slid through the solid stone like it was water.

The feeling of it was indescribable. It was totally different from what little he knew of Hylian magic. Hylian magic was about rules, about the mathematical notes of a song or the flawless transcription of mystical symbols. From what he could tell, the king more or less asked the rock to let them through, and it did. They became colour, bright and pure, and trickled through like water through a crack. It was casual. Simple.

Beautiful.

And then the rock pushed them out into the single largest room he had ever seen.

It looked like it could hold the entirety of the Temple of Time within it and still have room to spare. But it wasn't just big and empty, no, that would have made it look even more obscenely large than it already did.

It was filled with books.

The walls were lined with bookshelves. Each was crammed full with every time of manuscript he could imagine. Bound leather books, wooden lexicons written on vellum, old sheaves of parchment that looked like they were about to fall apart… There were even ancient scrolls of papyrus and a collection of stone tablets, carefully packed away in glass cases. From the edge of the balcony on which they stood, he could see four floors of the same below and at least three more above. The empty space in the centre of the room was crisscrossed with bridges, allowing for easy access from one part of the library to another, as well as to the central platform. Spiral staircases wound their way up and down, forming a sort of spine from which the whole library grew.

He'd never seen anything like it.

"I take it you're impressed." The king chuckled, standing beside him looking out at the great expanses of knowledge before them.

"I… I'm…" He shook his head, gaping at the wonder before him. "This is…"

"Heh…" Ganondorf leant against the railing, apparently quite pleased with himself. "Would you like to take a look?"

"WOULD I EVER!?" He almost sent himself careening off the edge of the balcony, just barely managing to save himself by latching onto the laughing man's arm. "There's a lifetime of reading here! Hell, there are two! Please please please please PLEASE!!"

"Fine, fine!" Ganondorf chuckled, gently prying his fingers off his arm. "Just make sure you surface for dinner. Nabooru and Aviel have been going crazy ever since you arrived. I'm the only one they ever cook for, and I have to admit, I'm not exactly a connoisseur."

"Yes, of course." His eyes were already wandering, flickering over the seemingly endless shelves of books, trying to decided what to attack first. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Heh… Have fun, brother." Laughing, he clapped the younger man on the shoulder before heading back the way he'd came.

By the time the last of him disappeared into the rock, he was already pulling out his first book.

* * *

If Sheik's reaction to the library surprises you or seems a little strong, think about this. Sheik is a poet by nature, which means words and such are his strong point. The Royal Family only really gave him access to a dozen or so books, most of which involve the prophecies and his role in them. So it's basically like living your entire life with three channels and then suddenly discovering you have satellite.


	37. Chapter 37 An Empty Heaven

Hey, folks. The weekend's coming up, and I'm going to be going home! Yeah! Except that means no updates till Monday. Unless I bring my laptop with me, which isn't very likely, but you never know.

Sorry for the shortness, and the, you know, ultimate fail. Right before a break.

* * *

Heaven.

He'd been kidnapped and brought to heaven.

He had more books than he could ever read. Nabooru and Aviel, who appeared to either be Ganondorf's sisters or possibly his wives, were quite pleased to cater to his every whim. They really were fantastic cooks, and the normal Gerudo style appeared to be more or less identical to the special ritualistic ways of the Shiekah. It was like he was quite literally eating the food of the Gods. The guilty pleasure was almost as good as the food itself. They gave him his own room, complete with an obscenely comfortable bed reminiscent of the red one he had found himself tied up in, only black, and a wardrobe equal to that of the princess herself. He had everything he could possibly want.

The days began to go by in a blur, filled with happy, familiar conversations, long comfortable hours poring over manuscripts, and an overwhelming feeling of belonging. Somehow, among his enemies he was at home.

Nabooru became Etin Nabu. The first time he said it, she almost killed herself laughing. After that, she insisted everyone use it, even Ganondorf himself. Aviel became Etin Avi shortly thereafter. Ganondorf continued calling him brother, although he didn't return the sentiment until almost a month had gone by, and even then he used the old tongue. Priar Ganon and Priar Shii.

What a pair.

He didn't see Link again.


	38. Chapter 38 Names and Dreaming

Updating twice because I really, really , REALLY want to get you caught up with what I'm actually writing. I'm working on this at least an hour every day now, and I just finished chapter 52. And am frustrated. Because there's a whole bunch of stuff that isn't really story canon yet, and... Just no.

So yeah. Enjoy.

* * *

_Dreaming._

_He was dreaming._

_He knew he was dreaming, which was strange. But it was a dream, which meant strange was par for the course._

_Priar Ganon was sitting on a fence. It didn't look very comfortable, but he seemed alright. He was humming something._

_It was a familiar song. It wasn't a Song, of course, but still. Familiar. _

_Not Gerudo, though. He'd gotten used to Gerudo music, full of twangy guitar and rhythmic drum beats, meant for dancing and random wordless singing. Songs of the desert. This was something softer, more peaceful. It made him think of green fields and stout horses, blue skies and puffy white marshmallow clouds. Sunshine. Gentle sunshine, though, not the sunshine that burns. _

_He felt someone standing behind him and turned. It was Etin Nabu, only not really. It was the skin of Etin Nabu, but he somehow knew that it was really Etin Impa, his real Etin. His real family. _

_She was talking to him, in the old tongue._

"_Ai ai ai, Tajah, thin un ch'ut go po? Go pan'dreg gor moga! Thila! Thila! Thila!!" She shook her finger at him, frowning._

"_Etin, I don't understand you. What are you saying?" He reached out towards her, struggling to understand._

"_Ralalpar, Tajah! Ralalpar gor moga!" She began to move backwards, or rather, the space between them began to get wider and wider._

"_Etin, what do you mean? Remember… Remember what?" He tried to grab her, but she was gone, disappeared off into the distance._

_He turned back to where Priar Ganon was sitting, only it wasn't Priar Ganon anymore. It was a young man in blackgreen clothing, with blackblonde hair and redblue eyes. He was beautiful. _

"_Tell me, lover." He smiled, tilting his head to the side and allowing his hair to trail over his shoulder._

"_Tell you what?" He took a step closer and the fence took a step away._

"_Tell me your name." The man leant towards him, close enough to feel the coldhot of his breath against his cheek. _

"_You know my name." He leant forward to claim the other's lips and found the distance between them was farther than he thought._

"_Tell me anyways. Tell me your name."He could almost feel the other's soft darklight hair brushing against his face. _

"_You know my name." Trying to kiss him, trying to touch him, trying to close the distance._

"_Tell me your name."Always a little farther, a promise just beyond reach._

"_My name…" So close… almost… just an answer, just a whispered secret, and then…_

"_Yes, lover… tell me your name…"_


	39. Chapter 39 Lady of Snakes

Posting another chapter because... Well, there's really nothing better to do. This is my first time spending a Friday night in a dorm room (going home today fail. I go home tomorrow), and I did NOT expect the noise and partying and tomfoolery. I swear, I don't know how these people do it. There has been Exorcist-style screaming and bikini contests, and now it sounds like they're making porn.

HELP ME OH GOD HELP ME.

Also, for your approval;

Kala'alan. (Bright one)

Z'tara (Heart)

Kae'rin (Golden)

Morhan (Love)

Pick one. Everyone gets one vote, so choose wisely.

* * *

"Lady of Snakes!"

Nabooru jumps, almost upsetting a bowl of soup. She just barely manages to catch the teetering bottle of spice wine before it crashes down to the table, spilling its rather expensive contents over the fine wood.

"What? What is it? What's happening?" She looks over at her brother, who up until that very moment has been sitting against the wall in quiet contemplation of who-knows-what.

"That half-breed castle-spawn refused me _again!_" Her lord presses the palms of his hands against his temples, strong jaw bulging as he mashes his teeth. "I don't understand it! He turns the blood-magic on itself, he sees through the dream-magic… Even his true name is denied me!"

"Surely you are stronger than him, my King." She stalks around to stand behind him, running her hands over his broad shoulders and easing the tension out of them with a lifetime of skill. "Surely it is only a matter of time before his power falls before yours."

"It's not his power I'm worried about." Ganondorf sighs, relaxing under his wife's ministrations. "There's something protecting him. Something keeping him from me. Something I don't know how to fight."

Nabooru says nothing. She knows the power of which she speaks. It's an old power, a woman's power. She felt it herself once, long ago before her brother-husband-king sealed the borders of their land and declared war against the Hylians. She knows that it is not something that can be broken, and that it will destroy anything that tries.

But still, she says nothing, for perhaps…

That would not be such a bad thing, after all.


	40. Chapter 40 Who am I?

Hah... No. Just no. Although I survived the night of ridiculous collage party stereotypes going on right outside my door, I never want to experience that again. Ever. No more Friday nights in res for me, no sir. Although at least it's quiet now. Too many hungover people to be noisy.

Anyways. Here's another chapter. Enjoy. Also, continued voting.

Kala'alan. (Bright one)

Z'tara (Heart)

Kae'rin (Golden)

Morain (Love)

* * *

He awakes to darkness.

The curtains of his bed are drawn, and there are no windows in his perfect room. There are no windows anywhere. He can't remember the last time he saw the sky.

He dresses in the darkness. It doesn't matter. All his fine clothes are the same. On a whim, he tears a robe into strips and carefully binds his head, fingers remembering the endless hours of practice, waiting for seven years to go by. He wants to wrap his fingers, too, but the fabric is thick, and it would make him clumsy.

He considers fashioning himself a mask, but quickly dismisses it. That is a thing for the women, within these walls.

He moves to the space on the wall where the thread awaits and touches it. He sings within his mind, a whispered melody of falling water and deep pools, warm and soft and sweet. He is blue, for a moment, and then he finds himself in the baths.

He removes his clothing once more, keeping his head bound, and lowers himself into the steaming water.

He had a dream, that night. Of course, he is no stranger to dreams. But this wasn't a false dream, one of the many that stream through the Gates of Ivory. It is a true dream, and it requires interpretation.

According to Etin Impa, all Sheikah are blessed with the gift of prophesy. It is said that they were the ones who wrote the old books, the ones telling of the dark king and the hero who would subdue him. Zelda shares his blood, he knows. He has always called her sister, although never before the king. It would never due to let him know that she is not his child.

His mother never blamed his father. It was for the good of the People. With a Sheikah on the throne, perhaps they could stem the tide of their extinction. And besides, every child helped. Sheik had not yet been born, and it had been almost twenty years since the last Sheikah life was brought into the world.

And then there were two on the very same day. The Princess Zelda born two weeks late and the shadow Sheik born two weeks early.

He resented her. She was snobbish and arrogant and selfish and absolutely nothing like the leader she needed to be. And he was forced into her service, as her bodyguard and her slave. All because he was born to his father's wife instead of his mistress. And now she got to lounge around in the Old Village, spending her days in leisure with the Sheikah elderly while he was of trying to save the world. It had always seemed so incredibly unfair.

But now… How was he any different?

At least she never betrayed her cause.

His mind is muddled. It has been for a long time. He has a feeling that there was a precise moment, a moment when he went from being _himself_ to _other_. He tries to remember when it was, but he can't.

It would be easy to fall asleep. To slip into the warm water and allow the bandages to slowly unfurl from his head, to drift back into the warm, pleasant lies wrapped around him like a warm blanket. So easy.

_Ralalpar, Tajah._

_Remember_.

He gets out of the tub and dries himself off. He wants his old clothes back. But they're gone now, long gone. He puts on the robe and the leggings and the stupid floppy boots and wraps the cord around his head.

He finds the thread and sings to it, out loud this time. It helps to do it aloud, somehow. It's familiar, like the feel of strings beneath his fingers.

He's been planning this for a while. At first, he just meant to impress his new family, show them how clever he was. But now his hopes are different, changed. He needs to get away from this place, steeped in the magic of the desert. He needs to clear his mind and remember.

He needs to leave.

He sings to the thread of the Outside. He lets the words come to him and leave him, lets the images flash through his mind and dazzle him in their brilliance. He sings of the desert at first, of things this hard rock would know. He sings of golden sands and warm, harsh winds, of tiny oases hidden behind red outcrops. He sings of a big blue sky, going on forever, as far as the mind can conceive.

He sings them into that sky, then, him and the thread. He draws them into that big, bright blue. And then he turns them around, and sings of the lands below. He sings of what the Goddesses would have seen, had they looked over their shoulders as they rocketed off into heaven. He sings of green fields, rolling hills, serpentine rivers and deep, cold lakes. He sings of deep forests and high mountains spitting fire. He sings of every sight he's ever seen, every landscape he can imagine. He sings to the thread and tells it of the Beyond, of the world beyond this progression of boxes its master has made for it.

But still, the thread is not convinced. It's afraid, afraid to leave the paths laid out for it. The wild world out there frightens it, and it will not move.

So he sings of something else, something he had almost forgotten.

He sings of people.

He tells their stories, one by one. For those he does not know, he makes up. They're beautiful stories, sad and happy and pretty and ugly and beautiful. He sings of petty lives, of little pleasures and little victories, and little defeats and little pains. He sings of weakness and regret. He sings of strength and hope.

But most of all, he sings of love.

And the thread understands, finally, that he will _not _be held back. It finds a path, wriggling through sandstone and granite and bedrock and soft, rich earth until it comes to the extent of its reach and its magic will allow it to go no further. And it lets him through.

He is light, for a moment. Not just colour. Pure, bright light. The light of the sun. The moment lasts longer than usual, far longer. He almost forgets that he's a man, forgets that he's just a passenger. But the moment is over, just in time, and he finds himself standing on soft green grass, with the wind teasing at the bits of his hair poking out from under his impromptu turban.

He finds the thread with his mind as it recedes into the desert behind him and thanks it. When its master discovers its treachery, he will be very upset indeed.

The thread thanks him as well, for singing it such a lovely song.

And then it disappears back into the base red rock from whence it came, what little self awareness he'd managed to spawn within it disappearing as quickly as it had been born.

And then he is standing alone underneath a star filled sky, with a full-bellied moon hanging above him, and for the first time in longer than he can really recall, he knows who he is.

Who I am.


	41. Chapter 41 I hurt him

Whoot another awesome possumn week in Res.

Voting's still going, btw.

Kala'alan. (Bright one)

Z'tara (Heart)

Kae'rin (Golden)

Morain (Love)

* * *

I'm alone.

For the first time since I entered the Demon King's palace in the rock, I am alone.

I hadn't even realized it, but there had always been something within me, a little buzzing voice inside my head. I wasn't myself anymore. I thought I was. I thought I'd just… Realized who I really was.

How could I have been so stupid?

I believed him. I believed every word he said.

I called him brother.

When did it happen? When did I change? At what point did it stop being me and start being… Whoever that was?

Who was it that…

That…

My legs suddenly decide to try out being jelly for a little bit. It's probably not a good idea to sit down and take a breather this close to the desert, but I really don't have a choice right now. I can see my hands shaking in the moonlight, like leaves. All of me is shaking. I can't stop it. I don't know if I want to.

I…

I hurt him.

I hurt him…

And I liked it.

"Oh God…"

My stomach heaves, expelling what's left of last night's spicy Gerudo stew onto the grass. I keep retching, even after my stomach's empty and there's nothing left to throw up.

I liked hurting him. It aroused me. Me. Not it, that thing Ganondorf put inside me, whatever it was. I know, I know for sure. Because the only time he could have done it without me noticing was while I slept, and I know, I _know_ that I was myself when I woke up tied to the bed. It was me.

It was me up to the very end.

I'm a monster. Disgusting. Worse than he is, even.

I want to blame Ganondorf for this. I want to blame him so badly. But I can't, because he didn't… He didn't make me that. He might have put me in the situation, but he didn't make me like it. That was me.

That was me.

After what feels like forever, I finally manage to get myself upright again. I stumble away on legs of lead and jelly. I fall twice, three times before I even get into Hyrule Proper. I'm not going to be able to make it to a settlement like this.

And what exactly was I going to do when I got there, anyways? I don't exactly have many friends. Impa and Zelda should be in hiding, and there's no way I can jeopardize either of them for my sake. If memory serves, there should be a small group of Sheikah elderly living in an aesthetic hospice community between the lake and the desert, but they might very well be dead by now, and they couldn't exactly help me if they did. They did go up there to die, after all.

Some part of me knows there's only one person in any position to help me right now. Only one person who can save me. Only one person who can ease my pain.

Except he's not a hero any more.

I manage to make it halfway to Lon Lon Ranch before my body gives up on me completely. It's not just the trauma; I'm sweating, shivering, flushed. I have a fever. There's something physically wrong with me, but whether that's an extension of the psychological shock or some sort of mystical Gerudo curse or something completely unrelated I have no clue. It just hurts.

It hurts so bad.

I'm exposed out here. An easy target for the Skullchild and the Wolfos and even the Goddess-damned Poes. A Keese could do me in right about now. But there's nothing I can do about it. I can't even move. It's all I can do to stay conscious, and even that's slipping from me.

The world around me starts to fade. The stars go out one by one, until all that remains is a dim grey moon, so blurry it's barely even there.

And just as that fades away into empty black nothing, I think I hear a sound.

Hoofbeats.


	42. Chapter 42 You're safe now

Aha, another update. Voting's closed now. The decision's been made. Now all that's left is to discover what you were voting _for._ Heh.

With love,

Jiia

* * *

It feels like a fever-dream.

It has to be. There's no way this can be real. It's… It's too good to be true.

I open my eyes onto a familiar sort of room. Not a familiar room, mind you, but a familiar sort of one. It reminds me of Impa's house in Kakariko, put together from white stucco and brown wood and love. Maybe this is Kakariko, I don't really know. It could be anywhere.

There's something cold and wet on my forehead. There's fluid running into my eyes, but I can't tell if it's just water of sweat. It stings a little. Nothing I can't handle.

My entire body aches. My first instinct is to sit up, take proper stock of my surroundings, check for restraints and possible weapons. The effort of it nearly kills me.

Suddenly, there's a strong, familiar hand on my chest, pushing me back down. A gentle voice murmurs nothing, trying to sound comforting and managing quite well. I can't quite make out what it's saying. It's familiar, too, although I couldn't tell you how.

I let myself be pushed back into the bed, the covers pulled back up over my feverish body. My caretaker leans over me, and I get a flash of blue, gold, kind concern barely covered over with a thin veil of calmness.

My heart skips a beat.

Before I can wrap my soggy mind around what's happening, the dark is closing in again, pulling me back down into the dark, empty dreamlessness.

The voice is talking again, and I think I know what it's trying to say.

"You're safe now."

The next time I come to, there's a woman. Red hair, blue eyes, Hylian ears. Some distant part of me says "kin", but there are only two Sheikah children in the world, and she's not one of them. And I refuse to accept the other possibility, at least not now. She feeds me soup which is plain and flavourless and the most delicious thing I've ever tasted and leaves, apparently uncomfortable in my presence.

I can hear horses outside. And cuckoos.

_I must be at the ranch._

I fall asleep to the sound of the animals. The ocarina music accompanying them is just in my mind.

It has to be.

One morning, I wake up and the fever's gone. I'm still weak, but the worst of it's over. I'm going to live.

I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.

I manage to pull myself up into a sitting position, looking around the small room I've been in for… However long. It's not much. The bed's simple, Hylian working-class. There's another one across the way, even shabbier. There's a little vanity with a dull, spotted mirror and a small array of cheap cosmetics lined up in front of it. There's a hole in the fabric of the stool that goes with it, allowing the cuckoo feathers inside it to stick out. It looks like one would puff out every time someone sat on the thing.

Four shuttered windows with no glass, opening out onto the pasture and the stable. The smell leaves something to be desired.

I haven't felt this comfortable in months.

The clothes I took with me are nowhere to be found. There is, however, a small pile of linens on a little wooden chair beside the bed.

It takes an almost inhuman amount of effort to get out of bed. I'm shaking again by the time I get myself to the chair. The clothes are simple, like everything else in the room, and a little well-loved. Hand-me-downs, obviously. Not that I mind. It's better than going naked.

The navy blue cotton breeches are excessively large to the point of being ridiculous, but thankfully, a belt was provided. Tucking the pant legs into the floppy boots looks a little silly, but at least now I can walk without tripping all over myself. The white shirt is similarly oversized. I have to tuck it in or risk ripping off the lower buttons attempting to walk.

In between the shirt and the pants, I find a small pile of bandages. At first, I'm not entirely sure what to do with them. My fingers remind me, automatically beginning to wrap the smooth fabric around my noggin.

There is no mask.

Walking to the door should have been easy. It wasn't. I had to lean against the wall, gasping for breath, struggling to open the portal with shaking hands.

I finally managed to get the damnable thing open and was about to walk through, when…

"Oh, you're fucking kidding me."

Stairs.

How was I going to survive stairs?!


	43. Chapter 43 Thunka thunka thunka

Aha hah... Yeah. Sorry for the short chapter. The next one's longer. Written up to chapter 70 now, so whoot! Also, Malon amuses me greatly.

* * *

Pat.

Pat.

Pa-foop.

Thunka thunka thunka thunka thunka thunka….

"Ow…"

"What are you doing?! How is killing yourself falling down the stairs a good plan?!"

"I didn't mean…"

"… What? Are you ok? Did you hit your head? Is your fever back? Let me see…"

"You… You're… How…?"

"Sheik? Are you ok? Look at me. How many fingers?"

"…"

Fwuthunk.

"… Malon! He woke up! He passed out again, but he woke up! Also, I think he may have a concussion now."

"That's nice, Link. Now, let's get him up to bed before one of the cuckoos eats him."


	44. Chapter 44 Without the demon

Another short one. Just to warn you, they're gonna get a little schizophrenic for a while. Just so you know.

* * *

I wake to pain.

Again.

This sort of thing appears to have become the central theme of my life.

At first I think I'm tied down again. There's something wrapped around my wrist, just tight enough to make it uncomfortable. When I try and move it, subtly test my bonds without alerting anyone who may be in the room to my conscious state, the shooting, throbbing pain is so intense I can't hold back a whimper. It's broken, and badly.

That explains the wrappings. They're bandages, not restraints.

I can hear someone moving. Coming towards me.

A moment of panic.

A million what-ifs run through my mind, a million thoughts and a million questions and a million horrible, sickening fears.

Without the demon inside me, making me calm and agreeable and _normal_, after a fashion, there's nothing to stop the sheer horror of what happened to me needle its way into my mind. I can almost feel the knives on my chest, the straps holding me down, the weight of the body above me…

His body.

Link, Link, _Link, oh God Link what did I _DO?!

And then, as the wave of fear and shame washes over me, I open my eyes.


	45. Chapter 45 I can't deal

Mah. Annoder chapter. Less short, so yeah. We're getting to the good bit. Or at least the schitzophrenic bit.

* * *

He's startled by my scream. He stumbles back, trips over the chair he had been sitting in and suddenly finds himself ass-over-teakettle. By the time he untangles his limbs and gets to his feet, I'm out of bed and _running_, not caring that I'm dressed only in some sort of ridiculously girlish nightgown, not even noticing the pain in my wrist, my head, the weakness of the sickness that makes me stumble and almost, but not quite fall.

I find the stairs out of sheer good luck and fall down them again, although in a more orderly and less painful manner. The room below is unfamiliar, but the front door has been propped open to let the fresh air in. I find my way out into the warm, gentle sun even as he clatters down the stairs behind me.

I've never actually been to the ranch before. I knew where it was, and the basic layout, but none of the maps I'd ever studied said anything about a gate. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been an issue. I could have been up and over it in the amount of time I stood there staring at it, weighing risk and reward. But with a broken wrist, and what felt like a sprained ankle from that second fall, and an aching headache that probably meant I'd managed to get myself a concussion, and still weakened by the fever…

I heard his shoulder hit the doorframe. I was out of time.

I didn't have any other choice.

I got about halfway up. I could almost touch the top. A few more moments, and I might have made it, injuries and all.

And then his arms wrapped around me, pulled me off the cold metal, pressed me against his warm, familiar chest.

It was over.

I wouldn't get another chance, I knew that. There was no way Ganondorf or his cronies would offer me even a modicum of trust again. They knew I was a lost cause, knew I'd never cooperate. Not now.

I was as good as dead.

All will to fight just drained out of me. Any resistance I put up now would be token at best, and I simply didn't have the energy. I collapsed against his chest, my whole body going limp. He went down with me, apparently startled by the sudden dead weight.

He doesn't let go, though, doesn't change his grip at all. If anything, he holds be closer, wrapping himself around me as best he can like some sort of fleshy blanket. It's almost like he's trying to comfort instead of restrain.

He's whispering to me, and I assume he's telling me to hold still, or threatening me, or talking about all the fun he's going to have tying me down again. Except that doesn't make sense, because he's rocking back and forth, rocking _me,_ and as far as I can tell he's just saying "It's ok, it's ok, it's ok…" over and over again. As if saying it made it true.

And then I start to realize.

He's not trying to hurt me at all.

I can't…

I can't deal. I just can't. It's too fucked up to even begin to deal with. Everything's happened so fast, one shock after another after another, and I just… Can't. Take it. Anymore.

I'm crying, without even realizing it. He's holding me, so gentle and kind and warm. Everything I want. Everything I've ever wanted.

But it doesn't feel good.

Not anymore.


	46. Chapter 46 The hard answer

Please don't hate me for this chapter. Please. It's really not that bad, really. This is where they start to get schizophrenic, by the way. So... Yes.

Don't hate me.

* * *

Link.

The Hero of Time. Perfect. Noble. Strong and confident and bright. The sun to my shadow, the bright day to my night. I've been in love with him since the first time I saw him. I would have given up everything to be with him, the whole world.

And now that I can, there's nothing I want to say.

He made me tea. It's not very good tea, but it's warm and bland and easy on my stomach. Sitting across the table from him with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I drink it in the awkward silence. He's uncomfortable in my presence. He's concerned, and more than a little curious, but he can't bring himself to look me in the eye or start up a conversation. He's willing to charge into battle against the forces of evil with little more than a glowing ball of dust at his side, and he's afraid to talk. Typical.

As for me, well… There are so many questions. So many. But none of them really matter, not now. They can wait, and I can guess the answers myself.

It's obvious, really. Almost too much so. The perfect, sunkissed, golden-haired Link sat before me in his ridiculous forest green, everything the hero should be. As if he'd never changed. And of course, he didn't.

I should have know it from the start. But it had never occurred to me that the words Ganondorf was speaking could be in something akin to my own tongue. And I've never been fluent, never saw the point in learning a language only the elderly and dying could speak.

I'm such a fool.

"_No, le rae'nuot. Not like that." _

"_Le rae'nuot." _

My creation.

Ganondorf can't make a person evil.

But he can make evil things.

It was a blow-up doll, nothing more, created to torture me, break me, I don't know. In all the two months I wandered the king's castle, I never once asked him what he wanted with me. Whatever the reason, he made himself a copy of Link. A dark reflection, the complete opposite of everything Link is.

The man I'd been with had never been real at all.

Some part of me was glad. Some part of me was happy, that I hadn't hurt Link. That I hadn't done that awful thing to him, and that he hadn't done that awful thing to me.

The rest of me realized that that wasn't the point.

"So…" Link shifts in his chair, looking everywhere but me. "Are you… Are you alright, now?"

"No. No, I'm not." I put down my glass, find it in myself to smile at him, trying to make this as easy on him (on both of us, really) as I possibly can. "But that's ok."

"I don't understand…" He's frowning, confused and concerned. Like a puppy, really. "What do you mean…?"

"I mean that I need to not be ok now so maybe one day I can be ok later. I mean, I _shouldn't _be ok. I don't _deserve_ to be ok." He looks at me, and I can see it in his eyes. He thinks I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. "Look, I don't know what I mean. I just…"

I want to put my head in my hands, but one's broken and the other's holding a cup of cold tea. I try and put the tea down, but my hand shakes and dumps the brew all over the table.

Link immediately jumps up to clean up my mess. What a good little dog. So well trained. He's watching me out of the corner of his eye the whole time, watching to see if I run, if I fight, if I just go batshit insane and run around clucking like a cuckoo. He's worried and concerned and all the things a good friend, a good person should be, but he thinks there's something wrong with me. He's willing to be tolerant and patient and kind in the same way you're kind to the village idiot, the slobbering fool who's so pathetic no one has the heart to just put him out of his misery. He thinks I'm crazy. He thinks I'm out of my mind.

Of course I'm out of my fucking mind.

I don't know what's real anymore. Did we ever touch? Did we ever kiss? Was there ever a miniature sun hovering between our eyes? Or was that just all a fantasy, a pretty lie spun by the Dark King himself? Did he ever really love me? Did _I_ ever really love _him_?

Do I love him now?

That's the question. That's the thing that's kept me going, kept me sitting at that table and drinking that God-awful tea and enduring his worried stare. That's the only reason I haven't just ditched, just gone away, if not physically, then mentally.

Do I love him?

The easy answer is yes. He's my hero. THE Hero, in fact. What's there not to love? He's perfect in every way. Why should I love him?

Because I believed the lie.

Ganondorf made something cruel and something tainted, something as twisted as he was, and told me it was Link. And I believed it.

I believed it.

Even now, I can see him looking at me, judging me. He's ready to lock me up and throw away the key, tie me down and leave me alone in the dark. He'd tell everyone he was doing it for my own good. Wouldn't want me to hurt myself, after all, get myself in trouble. But really, he'd be doing it because it's easier, and he doesn't have time for my bullshit. He has a world to save, after all. He's the Hero of Time. He has responsibilities, and they come before everything else.

They've always come before everything else.

Link's a good man. He is. He's selfless and caring and gentle and kind and everything I could possibly want. He's perfect.

But I'm not. I'm selfish and I'm greedy and I'm cruel, and I want him all to myself or not at all. I want something for my own, something the Royal Family can't fuck up or take away. I want someone who won't look at me and judge. Someone who won't care for me out of pity.

So the hard answer, then. The real answer. The one that hurts, the one that aches. The one I can't, don't want to avoid.

Do I love him?

No.

I stand up and walk away. He's tense, ready to stop me, ready to do whatever's necessary to keep me in line. The sigh of relief is sickeningly loud when I turn towards the stairs and begin my slow way up.

And that's it.

There's nothing else to say.


	47. Chapter 47 What I want

You'd think I'd get used to the pain. God knows, I've experienced enough of it. But you know, I don't think it ever really goes away.

Not this kind of pain, at least.

I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know where to go, who to be. I'm lost, in the every sense of the word.

I can't go back to being Zelda's gopher. I just can't. I've always hated her, always hated the stupid, demeaning things she made me do. I hated the prophecies and I hated being the instrument of fate. I hated being a tool. I never wanted to do this, to be this.

I never really wanted anything.

Except Link. I had wanted Link more than I had wanted anything in the world. I'd never felt such longing before. I thought I loved him. Maybe did. Maybe it was just curiosity and infatuation and lust. He's an ideal, really, and ideals are easy to fall in love with.

But that's the thing, with ideals. They're never precisely what you imagined, and even the tiniest shift shatters everything.

It's entirely possible that we could have been happy together. We could have lived in a butterfly-infested cornucopia of love for the rest of our lives. The hero and his guide, together forever. We might have worked.

Or we might have not. Heroes are not traditionally paired with their very male sidekicks. (A/N. Unless you count Batman. But Batman's Batman, and therefore untouchable.) One day, when all was said and done, Link might have looked up and realized that Zelda just fit in so much better with what his life was supposed to be. I know, _I know_, that he wouldn't even have looked back. He would have apologized, tried to make things right by me, and then sauntered out the door without a second thought. It would never have been about me, really.

It would have been about him.

And it would always be about him. That's just he way he is, the way he was made to be. A cookie-cutter hero, copied right out of one of the old books. He's helping me because it's what he does. He feels concern for me because it's appropriate that he does so. It has nothing to do with me at all.

I don't want to live like that.

I want….

I want to be special. I want to be needed. I want to be more than just a shadow, more than just a pretty face to hold him over until someone more suitable comes along. I want to be loved.

Is that too much to ask?

I lie on what is probably Malon's bed and think about everything that's happened. I let everything just swirl around inside me, never landing on any one thought long enough for it to form, to sting, to hurt. I just let it all collate, sort itself out into some sort of semblance of order.

That amazing night.

That horrible morning.

The days that followed.

Everything.

Some things are true. Some things are lies. Some things are lies that tell truths. The bits of the puzzle are slowly being put together in my mind, and it's starting to make sense. A twisted, frightening kind of sense, but a sense none the less.

I can't go back. I can't stay here. All I can do is move forward.

And there's only one direction I really want to go.


	48. Chapter 48 What I need

WHOOT scheming. Evil! Sheik is actually sort of fun to write. But only in small quantities. You know, this was going to be the hundredth ending to this stupid thing, but then it just _had_ to go and throw a stupid hissy fit and throw me another curve ball. God damn thing. Anyways. We're finally starting to catch up to where the actual story is, which is good. But yah. And for those of you who forgot, Etin is "aunt", so he's talking about Impa there. In case you couldn't figure it out.

* * *

Ganondorf made one crucial mistake. He probably thought it was harmless, something to occupy me while he did… whatever he did.

He gave me access to the library.

And as much of what he told me about the history of Hyrule was probably bullshit, he couldn't have faked those books. He just couldn't have. And there was no reason why he should. Half of them contradicted him, anyways. It would have been stupid to make books that contradict your own lies, and of all the things Ganondorf is, stupid isn't one of them.

I'd learned a lot in those two months. And not all of it was ancient history. There had been one particularly interesting text concerning the second generation of Sheikah, the ones who were born to the Hylian women married off to the stolen Gerudo men. It was the chronicles of one young woman, the first of the seers. Her father would have been a witchdoctor to his village, and he had passed his gifts onto her, although they had been changed substantially by the Hylian blood within her. She had done a great many things during the course of her lifetime, including crafting the Eye of Truth and sealing away the spirit Bongo Bongo in the depths of the dungeon that had spawned him.

She had also written a book.

It was a book of magic. It wasn't old Gerudo magic, where you called up the Powers and persuaded them to do your bidding. But it wasn't Hylian magic, either, where you subvert the Powers through sheer force of will. From all accounts, this was a new type of magic, formed in the maelstrom where the two forces met.

A Sheikah magic.

Much of it appeared to be simple, practical magic. Making the day turn to night, for example. Communicating over long distances. Even travelling, to some extent. In fact, the book appeared to suggest that it was Sheikah and not Hylian magic that powered the legendary highways between the Temple sites. There was even a hint that the Ocarina of Time itself was a Sheikahn creation.

The point is, it was powerful. More so than either parent magics. Gerudo magic depends on the will of whatever forces you call on, and how obliging they feel at the moment. Hylian magic can be dangerous if you lose control, and the results are always reluctant, soulless things. Our magic, on the other hand… it didn't rely on the Powers at all. It wasn't a borrowed power. It was the power of the user, theirs and theirs alone.

And the book is the key. Everything I need to know to practice this magic, right there in convenient book format.

There was only one problem.

The Hylians had taken it.

Instead of destroying it, they hid it away, hoping to find a way to decipher its contents and take the magic for themselves. They hid it somewhere, locked it up with a pair of priests and told them to get at it.

I don't know where it had been hidden.

But I do, however, know how to find out.

It's time to pay Etin a visit.


	49. Chapter 49 What I did

Bah... This is gonna be a fun day. Slut-Next-Door had a huge breakup fight last night, was throwin' shit around and shoutin'. Pissed me off. And earplugs don't help when you can feel the slamming doors through the floor. But yeah.

BTW, I finally gave in and joined Gaia online. I'm Jiiachan. So if you're on that strange little travesty of a thing, say high.

* * *

When I finally made my way back down stairs, Link was sitting at the table having a conversation with the redhead while she made dinner. About every third sentence coming out of his mouth was an offer to help, and I could see she was beginning to get annoyed. She looked at me with something akin to gratitude as I fumbled my way down the stairs and provided her guest with a distraction.

The moment he laid eyes on me, the words faltered in his mouth. He stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment before finding a sudden fascination with the table. I couldn't really blame him for staring; I'd spent the last several hours attempting to get the ludicrously big clothing my host had so generously provided to fit, and I've never held any aspirations to being a tailor. It wasn't pretty, but it functioned, and I'd had enough material left over from the shirt to construct myself another mask. As much as I had hated the thing, it made me feel more comfortable, somehow. Less vulnerable.

"Feeling better, I see." The girl smiled at me over her shoulder, the kind of warm impersonal smile usually reserved for receptionists and politicians. "You had Link worried there, for a second."

The connotations were not missed, whether she meant them or not. She was nice enough, and would continue to be nice until her dying day, but she just really didn't care. To me, I was another mouth to feed and a long series of uncomfortable nights on the couch. A hassle, little more. I didn't really mind. It made things so much easier than real emotion.

Ignoring her, I shot Link a look. This was the first test. If he knew what I meant, what I expected, then, well… That'd be something.

And sure enough, when I made my way out of the building and into the pasture, just behind the barn, there he was, following me like the loyal hound he was.

"Er… What's up, Sheik?" He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head.

I absently wondered where his hat got to before answering, somewhat enjoying the long moment of awkward silence while I pull down the mask. He's already seen my face, and it'll just get in the way of what I have in mind.

"What happened, that night?" I looked him straight in the eye, watching him flinch and squirm.

"Wh-What night? There have been a l-lot of nights…" He stared at the ground, scuffing at the dirt with the toe of his boot, as obvious as a child.

"The night Ganondorf captured me. You know, the one where we almost had sex." He cringes like I just threatened to hit him over the head with a brick, blushing outrageously at my bluntness. I can't bring myself to care.

"_Please_, Sheik, someone might _hear_…" He glances around, red as his eyes never were.

"So?" The shame's not a good sign, but it's not unexpected. Not the way he's been acting towards me. "Tell me what happened."

"Er…" He bites his lip, and at one time I might have thought it was cute. Now it's just annoying. "Well, We… And then… Well… Ganondorf-showed-up-and-everything-went-screwy-and-then-I-woke-up-in-a-tree-and-you-were-gone-and-that's-it I swear!"

He's lying. But that doesn't really matter. Whatever happened between him and Ganondorf is their business.

"And then what? Didn't you try and look for me?" He looks a little guilty then, a little confused.

"Of course I did! But then you just showed up out of nowhere and did your little play the harp thing. You wouldn't even talk to me! Besides you're usual cryptic crap, anyways." Indignant, pouting, more of a child than ever.

"Hm. I see."

Zelda. It had to be. She'd wanted to take my role, be part of the 'adventure'. She'd never had any concept of the kind of danger that would put all of us in. That Impa would let her was surprising, but I'd been gone quite a while. Perhaps it was the only way to make the prophecies come true.

"… Did you… Did something different happen to you?" He looks at me now, fleeting and shy. He's too innocent for this, too innocent for the world he lives in, but there's no helping that.

"Yes."

"Well…" Curious little puppy, totally unaware that he was about to get bit. "What happened?"

"I woke up tied to Ganondorf's bed. He tried to make a black version of you torture and rape me for kicks, but I got the better of you and raped you instead. Although I'm pretty sure you liked it, so it wasn't really rape." It's surprisingly easy to say, as long as I don't think about it too much.

And the expression on his face is _exactly _how I expected it to be.

Shock. Horror. Embarrassment. Shame. And something else, something that makes his eyes flash wide with a momentary, irrational fear.

Interesting.

"You… He… I…" He doesn't know what to do with himself. He's too flustered to think straight, to confused to bother with is usual strong hero look.

_That's_ cute.

I lean in and kiss him, just a little peck on the corner of his mouth, more affection than feeling. He almost stumbles backwards, supporting himself with a hand against the wall. I'm overloading his poor little brain. Everything's going according to plan.

"Sheik, what…?" He looks up at me, more lost than ever.

Here we go. Moment of truth time.

I pin him up against the wall. He could have pushed me off, easily, but he doesn't. He's flushed, breathing hard, trying to look anywhere but at me. He reminded me of my other self, when I turned the tide had him under me, trembling and needy and beautiful in a way my confident hero had never been.

"It's time to make a choice, hero boy. You can be what **they** want…" I press my body against his, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, hardness to hardness. His breath hitches. I almost laugh. "Or you can be what **you** want."

"But…" He gasps, his hands finding their way to my hips, trembling and unsure. "What about Ganondorf? I can't just…"

"Why not? Because you're the Hero? Because you were _born _to do it?" I kiss him again, on the soft skin right below his ear. His fingers are tugging at the shirt, participating even if he didn't mean to, want to. "Fuck that. It's your life. No one has any right to live it for you, not even the Goddesses."

"But… They'll… die…" I can almost feel his resolve weakening, draining out of him as I kiss along his jaw, press a little harder against him, make him gasp again and again.

"Newsflash. They're already dead." Almost at his mouth now, teasing, flicking my tongue out to touch soft skin. He's trying to move, meet me halfway, chasing me this way and that. Adorable. "Ganondorf won. What you're doing now is damage control. A planned assassination, a thousand years in the making."

"But…" He whines, shifting his hands up, trying to force me to stop this game and get serious. "He's… evil…"

Aha.

Here we go. Time to do what we Sheikah do best.

Ninja time.

"Then help me kill him." A simple thought, a simple idea, would turn their precious hero into something else entirely. Something beyond their control.

Link doesn't answer. He doesn't have to, not now. The idea is there, festering. Changing him.

Heh… Turns out, he's not so perfect after all.

I finally kiss him, finally end the games and the teasing. It's full and heavy and hard, full of as much love as Malon's greeting to me.

This _is _business, after all. It isn't personal.

I don't love him anymore.

* * *

Oh my God… I honestly don't know what the hell is happening. I mean, I know what he's planning and I know why and I know how it's all gonna turn out but I don't know WHY!! Why did he have to go batshit insane?! Sigh… I guess I just have a thing for crazy people. Like Joker. And Crane. And Hannible. And Marik and Bakura from YuGiOh, geek that I am. Don't tell me you didn't watch it, we all know you did. Everyone did. That show was _wicked_.


	50. Chapter 50 Dainty Little Shoes

Bah. This chapter refused to be written properly. So please forgive me for any and all crappiness. They were NOT cooperating.

Anyways. I am hungry, and must apply for a job, so I am off.

* * *

The hard part's over. Now all that's left is the sweating, the panting, the sticky finish.

Not yet, though. Not yet. I have to find a way to put it off, keep the reserved prize for the endgame. Can't have him getting bored, not when it's about to get so _interesting_.

Funnily enough, I don't even have to do anything. The universe does my job for me.

I nip at his bottom lip, just hard enough to draw out a needy little whine. I want to taste blood, leave bruises, take total control and crush him against me until he cries, until he _screams_. But not now, not now, not now. Now I have to seduce him, give him his happy ending.

Let the idea fester.

His shaking hands tangle in my hair, knocking aside the slipshod bindings. It hurts a little. I growl, shove him hard against the wood of the barn, pressing us together and revelling in the aching pain of hard against hard. He gasps, bares his neck, invites the scrape of my teeth.

A shade paler, and I'd break that skin like he broke mine, taste his blood and let him experience my nightmare.

His hands move down, back, side, waist, fiddling with the leather belt. I let one of mine run up his thigh, hot, quivering muscle pulsing under my fingers as I get dangerously close to sending the poor, confused puppy over the edge. Just a couple more inches, and it'd be all but over. Just a matter of time…

And someone clears their throat, and the magic's broken.

He almost jumps out of his skin, tensing guiltily against me. I keep him pinned against the wall, rest my head on his shoulder, keep my hand on his thigh, tracing little circles along the fabric-cloaked flesh. I can feel the heat of his blush against my skin.

"M-M-M-M….." His voice, trembling and frightened and ashamed, music to my ears.

"Link. Sheik." And _her_ voice, ah, it's almost too much to bear. Her cold, meaningless anger makes it so hard not to laugh. "Dinner's ready."

She walks away, stomping across the hard ground. A cuckoo squeals and clucks, fleeing in terror of those dainty little shoes.


	51. Chapter 51 Time to Choose

This chapter was also a bitch to write. In fact, the next couple of chapters were being pissy. Also, they refuse to let me angst them. So for all of you who were like "ARGH, WHY!?" It gets 'fixed'. Sort of. It's one of those God-damned plot twists I really don't know what to do with. Anyways.

* * *

Dinner was… awkward. Malon ate with fierce efficiency, letting us know that if anyone tried to mess with her, they would be rewarded with a fork to the jugular. Link just blushed and stared at his food, poking it occasionally with his utensil.

Talon and I had quite a pleasant discussion about the proper methods of raising cuckoos. It was quite entertaining watching Link respond to my 'industry lingo'.

Ingo provided slightly off-tune background music. The man had been seriously mindfucked, that was for sure.

Malon evicted me from her room. It was pretty clear that I wasn't welcome at the Ranch anymore. The girl had had a major crush on Link, and I had effectively shoved it in her face that not only was he out of her league, they weren't even on the same team. Not sure why she didn't picked up on it instantly. Girls are usually good at that sort of thing.

In any case, I would have to spend my night in the stables, sleeping on hay while horses munched in my ear. Not the most comfortable of arrangements, especially for someone as injured as I.

I almost, _almost_ thanked her.

I waited until after dark, when all the other farm folk had settled down for the night. Link was allowed to keep his place on the couch, which made things a little more difficult. Some serious sneaking would be necessary.

I got the horses ready first. I've never really been a horse person, but it's one of those skills no respectable warrior-poet can go without. Thankfully the Lon Lon ranchers felt no need to equip the tackle with bells like the Gerudo or Hylian riders. There wasn't exactly anywhere for the horses to go, after all.

I tied them to the gate. Which didn't actually have a lock. Just a crossbar, holding the two doorways together. That sure would have been handy to know way back when.

Link's sleeping face wasn't quite what I had pictured it. I'd imagined something cherubic, peaceful, even younger and more beautiful than his waking features. And in a way, it was more beautiful, at least to me. He was apparently tormented by nightmares, blonde brows drawn together in a frown. Sweat beaded on his brow, matting his hair, and for a moment I was reminded of black on ivory. It seems the hero's sleep wasn't quite as carefree as one might expect.

He starts awake under my hand, wide-eyed and confused.

"Sheik…? What…?"

"It's time, love." I smirk at him, pulling the covers off and letting them drop carelessly on the ground.

"Time for what?" He sits up, rubbing at his eyes like a small child.

"To choose, of course." I stand up, back away, smirking the entire time. A picture of confidence, even through everything, _everything _hinges on this singular moment in time.

He stands automatically, following me as I walk backwards towards the door. He's still off balance, still unsure of how to handle me.

Exactly how I want it.

"Are you going to be what _they_ want? A cookie-cutter hero, ripped straight from the pages of a storybook?" I pass through the doorframe, out into the starry night.

I can't stumble, not now. Can't hesitate for a moment. I need to keep him off-balance, keep control. As long as I'm in control, he's mine.

"Or…" Cross the narrow lane, praying I don't trip over a random cuckoo out for vengeance. "Are you going to be what _you_ want?"

And then it all falls apart.


	52. Chapter 52 Not that different

Bah, short chapter. OH! I forgot about this completely. I drew an arts! It's not a very good arts, but it's an arts all the same.

jiia-chan./art/Three-Word-Phrase-Sheik-98289882

-- Here it is! Go comment!

Anyways. There are some seriously short chapters coming up. Not instantly, unless I'm losing my mind, but pretty soon. No worries, I'll post all three of the really short ones in a row so it's not so much epic fail at life.

* * *

My back hits the wall. He keeps coming forward. There shouldn't be a wall here, the door should be open, I should be able to just keep going until the house is out of sight and then… But it's closed, it's closed, there's no way out, and he just keeps coming forward, and I'm _trapped_. I'm not in control any more. I've lost.

I've lost.

"Sheik…" He whispers, and it's not the way it should be. It's not confused, lost, vulnerable. Because suddenly the balance of power has shifted, I let the balance of power shift, and now _he's _the one in control, _he's _the one on solid ground, and I'm floundering, panicking… "You've changed, so much…"

He's got me pinned against the wall, hands on either side of me, penning me in. I can't escape, can't get away, and suddenly in the shadowy night his eyes look red. He leans in close, his breath whispering over my lips, so close, so much more powerful, like the Link of my memories. I try and squash the sudden fear welling up inside me, but it just keeps coming.

"I have to admit…" I can feel the words, feel them brushing against me, rolling over my tongue almost as if I'm the one saying them. "I kind of… like it…"

And then I realize.

I underestimated him. I underestimated him badly. He's not the dopey little puppy I had assumed. I should have remembered, should have remembered why I believed _he_ was _him_.

I should have remembered.

And then he presses his lips against mine, and it feels exactly, exactly the same.

Turns out, the two of them aren't that different after all.


	53. Chapter 53 As you wish

Ah... I am a masochist, I swear. God damn lemons. This one's not going to be quite as graphic, I'm afraid. Or maybe more so. I don't really know, it depends on how awesome of an imagination you have.

Also... I hate plot twists. This was supposed to be over by now. Damn things.

Come look for me on Gaia! I'm awesome! (Jiiachan)

* * *

He tastes like himself again. Honey and spices, light and darkness. Although to tell the truth, I don't know what part of that is light and what part dark. His evil alter ego had been sweet, after all.

One of his hands trails down my arm, light enough to tickle. He's being gentle, kind, but I can almost feel the restraint in him. The same way he must have felt it from me, I suppose. His tongue flickers along my bottom lip, almost stingingly hot.

He presses his body against mine. It's so familiar, the perfect melding of our two matched bodies. The contact brings a thrill of fear that makes my hands shake and my heart race. I feel the heat between his legs pressing against my thigh and am suddenly conscious of my own throbbing need.

I'm afraid. Afraid of this, of him.

Aroused by this. By him.

I never once told him to stop.

Not once.

He pulls back, only to dive back in a moment later, devouring me one nip at a time. I'm there to meet him, catching him momentarily off-guard as I slip my tongue between his lips. He mutters in approval and surprise, joining me in a battle for dominance neither of us really expects me to win.

He grabs my wrists, mindful of my healing injury. He pulls them up above my head, pinning them down, pinning me down. He's in complete control. And I let him, even though it sends a wave of fear coursing down my spine that makes my hips buck and my breath hitch.

He crushes me against the wall, sliding his free hand down to my belt and making quick work of it. The badly tailored fabric manages to keep from falling down, although it now sags significantly.

There is a moment of hesitation. Both of us know what's about to happen, both of us know what he's going to do. But still, he pauses, pulls back, looks at me. Like he's asking permission. Heh. As if I could do anything to stop him now.

"Did I tell you to stop?" I lean forward and whisper against his lips, only just loud enough to be heard.

"Heh…" His laugh is breathy, intimate. Something I'm almost sure no-one else has ever heard. "As you wish, Kitten."

I almost have time to ask. Almost.

And then his hand is sliding down my trembling stomach and under the hem of my pants, and it doesn't really matter anymore.


	54. Chapter 54 Beg and Plead

Mwa ha ha, more smexy.

Gaia has been consuming my soul. Seriously. It's ridiculous.

AH! Go join my RP! It's a Zelda RP. I need Link and Shiek and Zelda and Malon and Ganondorf and the Goddesses and a whole bunch of random characters still, so COME JOIN!! I DEMANDS IT!

Tis here! /forum/series-related-miscellaneous-role-play/zelda-enter-the-void-lit-rp-open-and-accepting/t.441162211/#7

(If anyone knows how to make it clickable in HTML, please tell me. I suck really bad. -.-')

* * *

Things begin to get fuzzy.

His hand wraps around me, hot and soft and surprisingly skilled. A clever joke is born into my mind and dies as a moan muffled by his lips. My hands are still trapped above my head. I can do nothing but take it, let his fingers tease and touch.

He releases my mouth a moment too soon to muffle the whimpered cry that escapes my lips. Laughing quietly, he turns his attention to the bell of my ear, whispers punctuated by a flashing tongue.

"You know, you're the only one I could ever really be myself around. Or at least as close to myself as I ever got." His teeth nip at the soft flesh of my earlobe, just hard enough to hurt. "You were so in love with me, it didn't matter if I got a little…rough."

Bruises on my hips, darkness in his eyes.

"Yeah, well…" I finally manage to form a coherent sentence, bucking my hips in a futile attempt to increase the friction. "You're… You're just so damn loveable…!"

"But you don't love me anymore, do you?" He sucked wonderfully hard on the patch of skin just below my ear, dangerously close to my neck and possible doom. "Not like before, anyways."

Just a little more. Just a little more and he'd be sucking on my neck, licking and kissing and… I was going to lose control again, I was going to lose my mind, the fear was making me so _hard_…

"Sh…Shut up and… ah!" His tongue hits flesh and I flinch away, jerking against his hand and almost knocking our heads together at the same time.

He didn't apologize. If he had, I would have found a way to end it right there, pinned down or not. This wasn't about apologies.

He moved to the other side of my head, pressing a kiss against my cheek, almost tender. Almost loving.

Almost.

"Shut up and what, Kitten?" He whispers into my ear, becoming still.

Waiting.

For a moment, there's silence. Just our breathing, his still relatively slow and calm, mine harsh and panting.

He was really going to make me ask.

"Fuck me…"

"I'm sorry, what was that?" He purrs, squeezing just enough to remind me how hard I am.

"Fuck me, you pointy-eared bastard!" It comes out half sob, half moan, half growl, feral and desperate and at the moment, I really, really don't care. "Fuck me before I lose my fucking mind!"

He laughs that low, seductive laugh, and I find myself wondering how I could ever think him innocent.

"Language, Kitten, language."

And then before I can even figure out what's going on, my pants are falling to the ground and there's something hot and hard and bigger than I expected pressing against me, into me, and nothing's ever hurt so much.


	55. Chapter 55 The Only One

Ah ha ha... Yeah.

Still looking for RP's, especially people who want to be Goron, Zora, or Kokiri OCs. Other OC's are welcome, too. And I still need someone to be Shiek, Zelda, Ganondorf, and the Goddesses. Pretty pretty please?

Because FF hates links, here's a really chopped up version that will hopefully work.

www.gaiaonline. com/forum /series-related-miscellaneous-role-play /zelda-enter-the-void-lit-rp-open-and-accepting /t.441162211/#7

Take out the spaces and it should be good. And if it isn't, then go to Gaia Online and search for "Enter the Void." It should be the first result up. .

Hope to see you there!

* * *

It's like being ripped apart from the inside out. It feels like I'm screaming, but I can't hear it over the pain. It's all-encompassing, blinding. Worse than the knives, worse than the glass. Because those were on the outside, on the peripheries. This is inside, so deep inside it's like tearing out my heart.

The fear turned me on. The fear felt good, in its own awful way.

This just hurt.

Link had his arms around me. Somehow, we'd ended up on the ground, my back still up against the wall at an angle that would have been painful, were it not for the other, greater pain drowning it out. He's holding me close, holding me tight, like when I woke up and tried to run, comforting and suffocating.

He wasn't trying to hurt me. I'd asked for this, asked him to do this. I could feel him trembling, struggling to hold still, keep from just pushing me down and _taking_ what he wanted, the way I had done to the him that wasn't him.

I'd never really understood the kind of pain I must have caused him until now.

"Sheik…" Link gasped, his voice chopped and broken by what sounded like sobs. "Sheik…"

He kissed me, sloppy and desperate and shuddering. He was weakening, losing control. Part of me wanted to take advantage of that, regain control of the situation. Part of me hurt too much to care.

Part of me wanted to lose it with him.

"D… Don't… call me by that name." I manage to find my limbs again, wrap them around his neck, tight as I can, trying so hard to hold on for just a little longer, just long enough to do this, make this right.

This wasn't part of the plan. In fact, this was going completely _against_ the plan. But plans change, and mine had been doomed from the start. This isn't how it was supposed to be. He isn't how he was supposed to be.

"Then… Then what should I call you?" He keeps holding back, keeps delaying the pleasure. He's being gentle, gentle and cruel in the same breath, and I'm not sure I understand it.

"M… my name…" It's getting harder and harder to keep it together, to stay sane and stay rational and keep my mind going forward, forward into whatever future awaits me.

"…" For a moment, he's confused, still and trembling, looking at me and trying so hard to figure out what I mean.

This wasn't part of the plan. Even at the very beginning, even when I thought I loved him, I never considered giving him my name. My virginity, yes, but never my name. Even in that one breathtaking moment when everything seemed to bright and perfect, when I thought I could see into his mind and see the love, and the love between us was almost tangible, almost _real_, I never thought about giving him my name.

But now the pain is slowly fading, and the fear tight in my gut is a different type of fear, and I finally realize what some part of me has known all along.

He's the only one I'll ever care about.

Even if I don't love him, even if I hurt him or he hurts me, even if nothing ever goes right between us again…

He'll still be the only one I ever want.

My sun. My moon. My hero and my villain. He's the most important thing that's ever happened to me, no matter what.

"But…" He swallows hard, and there's fear in him now too, fear of screwing this up, fear of hurting me beyond physical pain, fear of getting involved in something more, something _important_. Something beyond his stupid destiny. "I don't know your name…"

"Yes, you do." I whisper to him, pressing my forehead against his. The pain's almost gone now, and as terrible as it was, I know he didn't mean it, didn't want it. "You've known it all along.'

"After all, you're the one that gives it to me."


	56. Chapter 56 A Binding Vow

And the really short chapters begin.

Still looking for people to RP with. I need the Goddesses still, and a Gerudo character. And anyone else who's interested.

/forum/series-related-miscellaneous-role-play/ zelda-enter-the-void-lit-rp-open-and-accepting /t.441162211/#7

* * *

It was Gerudo custom to have two names. The first was given to them by their parents, and it was what they were called by their fellows.

The second they earned for themselves, and no other may know it, but those whom they would trust with their life; their mates, their children. Perhaps their closest of friends.

The Sheikah brought this custom with them to the Hylian plains and the foothills of the mountains and all the other places where they came to dwell. But in the Sheikah, the custom had changed.

When two lovers came together on the night of their binding, they would whisper to each other their greatest secrets. They would bear their souls to one another, and in doing so, come to know the other as well as they knew themselves.

And then they would give each other their true names.

And so it came to be that, among lovers, the giving of names was akin to the marriage vows, binding the two together for the rest of their lives.

After all, to know someone's true name is to have sway over their very soul. What greater bond could two people share?


	57. Chapter 57 A Given Name

"… Z'tara…"


	58. Chapter 58 I am Heart

The moment he said it, I knew.

I'd been waiting for it all my life. My name, my true name. My magic name. The name that was my soul, my very being.

My name.

It didn't surprise me that he spoke the old tongue. It seemed appropriate, somehow.

After all, it was _my_ name.

There was power in it. What little pain remained vanished in a blink, leaving nothing but a vague feeling of strangeness. I felt stronger, somehow. Not physically, although it wouldn't have surprised me. No, this was a mental strength, a spiritual strength. A strength of character and of soul. The strength of someone who finally, finally knows who they are.

I am Z'tara.

I am Heart.

It's a beautiful name. Normally, I might have been offended, to be given such a feminine moniker. But it's not that kind of name. It's…

It's like the sun. It's like that old saying, that old declaration of love. It might be a little cheesy, a little corny, but it's still beautiful. Still true.

That's what my name is like.

Link's confused, still. I don't really want to explain it to him. I don't know how I possibly can. How can you explain something like that to someone who's only ever had one name, someone who's never even _thought_ of having another one? I just… I couldn't even think of where to begin.

But then, something occurs to me. Maybe he can know, can understand.

After all, there's no rules saying it can't go both ways. The exact opposite, in fact.

I look at him, really look at him, for the first time since this whole debacle began. He really is lovely. And strong, too. You can see it in every plane of his face, his body. He's a warrior, through and through. That's part of what I like about him, have always like about him. He's relatively simple compared to the likes of Zelda and most of the others involved in this giant gong show. He goes in, whacks a bunch of stuff with his magic sword and comes out, easy as that. He's never had a use for lies and intrigue.

And yet, he has his secrets, which is just as appealing. He's like me, in a way. He's been hurt, twisted around inside. I always imagined he'd have issues, but sadism was sort of out of the picture. Not that I'd ever imagined myself a masochist, either. Look at how that turned out.

But he wasn't really sadistic. He didn't really get off on my pain, or he would have just kept going instead of sitting there twitching like a dying fairy. It was more like… More like he enjoyed the battle. Enjoyed winning and being in control and not having to worry about getting stabbed in the back. He enjoyed not being in peril. Which makes sense, considering his profession. But of course, he's not as simple as that. He liked it when I pushed him against the wall, too, back when I was still reasonably on top of things, so to speak.

He's simple and complicated, light and dark, beautiful and ugly and infuriating and uplifting and suddenly I know exactly what to call him.


	59. Chapter 59 Thy Name Is

"Morain."

Love.


	60. Chapter 60 By your side

Sorry, guys, this should have been in the last update. It should get back to normal, soon. Still need RPers!

* * *

"And so it is done. The Name of my Heart has been given unto you, who is Love. And you, who is Love, has given your Name to me. And from now until the end of our days shall we hold fast to one another, for our names were Given and Received in turn, and we are bound by the very fabric of our souls, for ever and always.

For the Sun, who is all that is bright and good, does rise in the eyes of you, who is Love. And the Sun does rise in my eyes as well, for they are but reflections of yours.

Heart of my Heart, Love of my Love, be by my side, until the Sun sets upon the world and we lay still in peaceful shadow. Heart of my Heart, Love of my Love, I shall be by your side forever."

_Verse 3:33 of the Pan Er'han, the Sheikahn book of rituals, commonly used as vows of marriage. _


	61. Chapter 61 A New God

Ahah... Malon will not be pleased. Still need RPers! Please! I'm beggin' ya! Just two more people!!

Also, if anyone gets the references to the Endless... You're awesome. If you don't, go read Sandman. (Neil Gaiman, not the other one, whoever he is.)

* * *

We are strong.

Our names give us power, slipping from one to another and back again. The boundries between us blur. You? Me? Us. There is a dim awareness of those around us. Base, animal minds, simple and slow. The chaotic, rambling mind of the man in the barn, taking the tack back off the horses so inexplicably left outside in the middle of the night. The fractured Dreaming of the other, filled with giant golden cuckoos, taking out their vengeance upon those who feasted upon the flesh of their brethren. And the girl, watching from the window, disgusted and aroused and shameful and curious. All it takes is a push and she joins her father in the Dreaming.

This is a private affair.

Flesh and mind and soul, all joined together. Indistinguishable. Slowly, slowly, our bodies begin to move in delicious unison, ripping and tearing and healing and ripping again, until the way is smooth and clear and slick with blood from wounds that no longer are. Fingers grip flesh; Whose? Does it matter? The pain is felt by both, and the pleasure. It bounces between us, getting stronger with each volley.

It occurs to us that no other in this world has felt this feeling. There are no others like us. Never before has so much power been gathered together, shared and joined in one single-double form. There is a sense of destiny about it, but not in the way Destiny usually manifests. Destiny screams against this, screams and howls and fights. But there are powers greater than Destiny, and they have decided to interfere.

It is suddenly clear. The answers to all our questions are right there, laid out before us in between the lines. You can know everything, if you just look closely enough.

The physical union is almost unimportant. Almost, but not entirely. It is a ritual thing, and while rituals may be arbitrary, they serve their purpose.

The magic is old, and it calls upon old Gods. These have been here since before the first spirit was born, and they will be here far after. They are the only truly immortal creatures within this universe.

One by one, they approach the joined souls and give their blessings. A girl with rainbow hair places wreaths of silver and gold flowers across their brows. They are made of universes. A fanged dwarf, grey flesh hanging from her stout frame like sandbags, breaks a mirror above their heads. The shards turn to dust and cover them, slipping just under their skin until it seems to gleam. A beautiful man – or is it a woman? – grants them with a touch. Invisible chains of platinum break, and they are free from his-her cruel, wonderful grasp forever. A bearded man with a sword contemplates a silver dagger, flipping it in his large, battle-scarred hands. In the end, he slips it back in his pocket. A black-haired man with eyes like stars sprinkles golden sand over them. It slides of their skin, blows away in the wind. He is mildly surprised.

The black-haired woman does nothing. Her gifts are not meant for them, not yet.

In the background, the eldest writhes. The book chained to his boney wrist is smoking- page after page frantically re-writing itself to fit the new story. Change cuts him like a sword; his fingers drip blood. The wounds will heal, in time.

The power builds. Not since the days of the old gods has there been such a gathering. And soon, any moment now…

Release.

To a casual observer, hovering innocently just outside this universe, it might have appeared that Creation was happening again. Light was drawn in towards the center of the world in a wave of brightness, leaving only shadows in its wake. For a moment, there was a point of extreme brightness, greater than any Sun has ever been. And then it began to spread again, exploding outwards in a riot of green and gold and red and brown and blue. It spread hills out before it, mountains. Lakes formed in its wake, rivers trailing out behind it like loose threads. The sky billowed out of it like steam, spreading across the face of the world like a blanket of transparent blue. Buildings grew out of the earth and were destroyed in a heartbeat. Whole civilizations rose and fell. The whole history of the world was laid out in a moment.

Presently, it began to slow. The sun ceased to be a neon blur across the sky. Individual creatures became visible, flitting quickly through the world like fairy sprites, which some of them actually were. And then it slowed further, until a heartbeat was a heartbeat and a moment was a moment, and the two coupled lovers lay together, experiencing both in the exact same way.

Such would have that casual observer seen, as they floated on by this tiny, insignificant world.

But alas, although there were indeed observers, not one of them could be deemed casual.

And down below, for the first time in almost a thousand years, a new God was born.


	62. Chapter 62 A New World

Glad everyone liked the last chapter. . The Sandman folks will be coming back eventually, so it's good to know that you know who they are.

First came Delirium, who was Delight. Then came Despair, the twin of Desire, who was third. The fourth is Destruction. The fifth is Dream. The sixth is Death. Death and Destruction gave them no gifts, which, you know, is a good thing considering. The seventh is Destiny.

On another note entirely, I DESPERATELY NEED RPERS!! Come on, guys. Someone out there has to want to play the Goddesses. Someone has to have a Gerudo OC to play. Please?!

I'm going to attempt to link things, but I can't be certain it'll work.

www.gaiaonline. com/forum/series-related-miscellaneous-role-play /zelda-enter-the-void-lit-rp-open-and-accepting /t.441162211/#7

* * *

For a long, peaceful moment, there was darkness. We were floating in it, touching nothing except each other. His arms around me were warm, comforting. I clung to him, afraid to be lost in the great empty drift.

And then the world slowly began to form around us again. The cold, rough earth beneath us, pebbles digging into soft flesh and causing little annoying pains. Cool night air, raising Goosebumps along our arms. The whistle of the wind, the quiet clucking of the cuckoos and the gentle lowing of the cows.

It was the same old Ranch. And yet, something was different. There was _more_ to it, somehow. It was cleaner, fresher. There was a peculiar smell to it, like the smell of the world after a good rain without the inherent dampness.

And then I opened my eyes.

Nothing I'd ever seen before had ever been so beautiful.

Nothing had changed. It was still just Lon Lon Ranch, simple, plain, a little run down. It was still just a pasture, surrounded by a crumbling wall of stone. It was the same old sky, slowly brightening as the light of dawn spread over the earth.

And yet…

It was a new dawn. A fresh dawn. A dawn the likes of which the world hadn't seen in a thousand years. The colours were brilliant, vibrant, story-book colors, each shining brighter than the last. The buildings and the field and the wall and the earth were all so much more _real_, somehow, as if before they had been mere shadows of reality. It was like the world had woken up from a dry, dreary dream and found itself in a more lovely reality than it could ever imagine.

Link stirred beside me, woken from his shallow sleep by my movement. He too sat up, marveling at this new world before us.

"It's…" There was wonder in his eyes, true wonder, like the wonder of a child at the stories of the olden days when adventure and magic was to be found around every corner. "It's… It's exactly the same. But it's completely different, too. How…?"

"I don't know." I can feel the wonder within myself, too, and already I'm beginning to forget that the word wasn't always this stunning. "But it's beautiful."

And so the two of us sat together and watched the sun rise on a world that was the same and yet not the same, different and yet not different. The world had been changed irrevocably. Destiny had been forced to re-write his book. A new world, a new timeline had been born, spawning a whole new universe along with it.

And never once did it occur to us that we had anything to do with it.


	63. Chapter 63 Now we're free

Life fail at the moment. Might be a little sporadic for a while.

Still need RPers! PLEASE, PEOPLE!

* * *

We found Ingo asleep in the hay, muttering about magical doors and ghost horses who tacked themselves. Although I was a little annoyed at having to do it all over again, it wasn't nearly so difficult or painful with Link helping me. Especially considering he insisted upon taking only one horse, and one he now rightfully owned, at that. The ride would be somewhat uncomfortable, but at least it would be legal.

Link also insisted on leaving a note, telling Malon we were leaving and not to expect us back for a while. It was also a bit of an apology, although he never came outright and said it. I was beginning to understand the two of them, and while I didn't really like what I came up with, I could accept it.

And then we were off, riding into the sunrise towards the home and hiding place of the last of my kin.

Link didn't ask where we were going. He didn't have to. He knew where we had to go, just as much as I did. What we had to do in order to end this, once and for all.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a real future ahead of me. My entire life always revolved around that stupid prophecy and my role in it. But now the prophecy had been thrown out the window. The pages of the book were blank. Finally, for the first time in this messed-up little world, we truly had the free will to do whatever it was that we wanted. There were no Gods or Goddesses looking over our shoulders, steering us in whatever path they found amusing.

Now we were finally free.

It was the singularly most pleasant feeling I've ever experienced.

_Ok, at this point I feel I should explain where we were in game-canon at this point. Link had just defeated the Fire Temple when he met Sheik in the field and they got captured. After Link got released, he wandered around for a little bit looking for Sheik. It was at this point that he found the frozen Zora's Domain. During his exploration of the Domain, he found the Ice Caves and the Iron Boots, at which point "Sheik" showed up and told him about the Water Temple. This is when Zelda made her first appearance as Sheik. After trying to get to Lake Hylia and finding it impossible, Link went to Lon Lon, where he got Epona, saved the ranch and doomed Ingo to a severe mind-fuckery. After escaping the ranch, he found Sheik in the field on his way to the lake, and took him back to Malon. From this point forward, game canon has pretty much been thrown out the window. Also, as far as the characters are concerned, there is no going back in time. I know, I know, chibi Sheik would be so cute, and I may very well find a way to do it. But for now, there is no going back. So there._


	64. Chapter 64 Power of Will

We finally get back into the long, plot-driven chapters! Whoohoo!

Still need RPers.

* * *

We saw the smoke ten minutes out.

Link glanced back at me, the same feeling of dread that had settled firmly in my stomach written clear across his face. I tightened my grip around his waist and we were off, racing across the fresh, green plain as fast as his trusty steed could go.

We didn't make it in time.

There was a small group of survivors standing around the scraggly tree at the bottom of the stairs, covered in soot and smoke residue, shocked and afraid. Link hopped down to deal with them, see if any of them were hurt, try and find Impa among the trembling mass. I already knew she wasn't there.

I could feel that… _thing_ from the road. It was like a shadow falling across my soul, blotting out all light and hope and goodness. That sort of feeling would have ruined a normal person.

But then again, I'm not a normal person, and I've already been ruined.

There was no point in stealth or subtly. It already knew we were here. It could feel us as clearly as I could feel it. Any moment now, it was going to come out and attack us head on, with what few of Kakariko's population within easy reach. Letting it out of the village would not only put us in danger, but all of them as well. It had to be contained.

The sight of Kakariko in flames broke my heart. I had been raised there, after a fashion. It was where my parents used to live, before their deaths, and all my memories of them involved the little settlement in one form or another. While I wouldn't call it _home_, per se, it was the closest thing I'd ever had. And now it was burning, bright orange flames belching black smoke into the steadily clouding sky. It would start raining any minute. Maybe that would do something to quench the flames.

The fire was not my concern. There was nothing I could do about it, after all, except wait and pray. No, it was the shadow looming over it all that I had to deal with. I wasn't really sure how yet, but surely something would come to me.

The first order of business was to take the general cloud of destruction and misfortune and turn it into something tangible, something easier to deal with. It was dangerous, to be sure, but I couldn't very well lock away a nebulous cloud of pure evil. I'd need to lock it in at least a semi-permanent form.

I'd never done major magic before. I'd had a little practice with it, of course, but nothing on this scale or this urgency. I wasn't sure how to go about it, so I went with the first thing that came to mind.

I found myself setting the song to the tune of the Nocturne of Shadow. It wouldn't take me to the Shadow Temple, of course; I didn't have my harp with me, let alone a magic instrument. Still, there was power in it, power sympathetic to the creature before me. If there was anything that could affect this monstrosity, that song was it.

The words didn't matter so much as the will behind them. I'm not even sure what half of them were. Some were in the old tongue, others in common Hylian. I built the effect I wanted out of words and notes, constructing a cage for the cloud to live in. I could feel it struggling against me, pushing against my power. But I was the stronger. It was just a little demon, an angry spirit, a minor god at the most. I was stronger, I was better, I was…

The thing let loose a bellow as at last the door of its earthly cage was locked tight. It had form, now. A hideous, malformed thing of pure shadow and glowing red hatred, a form that should never have been permitted to exist in this world.

Time to rectify that problem.

I was about to begin again, taking the Prelude of Light and singing it into a deadly sword to cut and rend and return this monstrosity to the nothing from which it was spawned when I heard his voice call out.

Time became a funny, selective thing. My concentration broken, I tried to turn, to shout at him to get back, get away, quick before it sees you… But it was already too late. The corporeal form of the darkness swooped down upon him, disembodied hands outstretched to snare his fragile body and rip him limb from limb. Oblivious to the danger, Link just stood there, looking at the burning village with a sort of childish, innocent horror that completely missed the real terror about to be inflicted upon him.

He was going to die.

Something happened.

The world rippled. Suddenly, the ground on which we stood was several feet lower than it had been, or the creature was higher, or some strange combination of the two. In any case, it's greedy hands missed Link by a breath, clipping him on the shoulder and knocking him to the ground. I called it towards me, drawing it in with the force of my will alone. It came willingly, dead hands outstretched for a new squishy prize. The dumb thing obviously underestimated me. I pulled it right over my head and flung it past me, using its own momentum to send it flying back into the black pit from whence it came.

There was no time to think about how.

I was at Link's side in a moment. He'd been knocked unconscious, blood trickling from his temple, but he'd heal. Nothing was broken, although he was going to be _very_ sore in the morning.

And then…

The shadow would pay.


	65. Chapter 65 A Dawning Comprehension

I.... Can't actually remember if I posted yesterday. I've been having a bit of a bleeding issue, and it's starting to mess with my memory. I think I did, but I probably didn't. So apologies, just in case I did.

On to the story now.

* * *

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Link frowned, his hand automatically moving to the cut on his forehead. It had taken two stitches to close, and was currently bandaged in the style of the mummification school of first aid.

I wasn't about to take any chances.

"Me? What about you?" He groaned, slowly sitting up. I rearranged the pillows a little, letting him lean comfortably against the headboard of Impa's old bed. "Goin' runnin' after ultimate evil all on your lonesome… Stupid."

He winced, rubbing his bruised shoulder. I almost laughed. _Didn't he know, didn't he realize…._ But then again, _I _don't even really know. I don't even really know what I don't even really know.

"I was doing _just_ fine until you showed up, thank you very much." I grab a pitcher and glass from the table behind me without turning. I pour him a glass of water, hold it to his lips.

He doesn't notice that I'm not holding the pitcher.

"Well, it was still stupid. You should have waited for me." He takes the glass from me, smacking my hand away rather irritably. I can't help but smile. Even now, he holds on to his silly mortal pride…

"There wasn't any time. It was almost done with the town, and it would have gone after the townsfolk next." I put the pitcher back on the table. It's like moving another limb, really. Easy as pie.

"Oh, yes, and I'm sure that keeping the townsfolk safe was your first priority." Link scoffs, passing the glass back to me half empty.

"Of course. I'm not Ganondorf, after all." I put the glass back on the table the same way I put the pitcher. He's got to notice sooner or later.

But no. He just flinches, looks away, his face colouring with shame.

Interesting.

"In any case, there isn't a lot of time to sit around chatting. Impa's in danger, and so are we. That thing isn't going to stay put for long." I stand up, pushing my chair back against the wall. Link's already shifting, trying to get out of bed.

Now it gets good. If what I'm starting to think is right, then…

He puts his feet on the floor, shifts his weight, and he's standing, steady and sure. He shouldn't be awake for another couple hours at least, let alone up and about. And yet, there he is. The bruises are already fading.

I'm right.

Wicked.

"Well, then? What are we waiting for? We've got an aunty to save." He slings his swordbelt over his shoulder (when did he pick it up? Does he even realize what he did?) and grins at me, that cocky, confident grin that's as bright as the sun and twice as warm.

It's going to be a fun day.


	66. Chapter 66 Temple of Shadows

I... Have no excuse as to why I haven't updated. Well, technically I have many. First there was that bleeding thing, which I still haven't really figured out yet, although it seems to have stopped for now. And then there was a presentation to do, and then I had to study for exams, and then we had a snowstorm and got snowed in and the internet was down, and then I was sick for a while. Which are all valid reasons for not posting. Sort of. Because really, I didn't post because I am lazy, and Gaia is slowly eating my soul. -.-

I am so sorry. I cannot promise it will not happen again.

* * *

The temple is familiar. I know I've never actually been there, but still…

At first, the torches confused us. As soon as we lit one, another went out. Even with the two of us, we couldn't get them all lit at once. Eventually, Link just swore rather graphically and waved his arm at the lot of them.

Poof. Magic.

Neither of us comment.

The next obstacle is a little more challenging. The gaping pit-o'-doom is just a little too wide for Link's hookshot to reach, and besides, it could only take one of us across.

I half-remember some other time, long ago, when there was a bridge. People shuffling over it, heads down, resigned to their fate. Children holding onto their mothers and crying. Gaunt, skeletal people. A man in what looks like the uniform of the Royal Guard pushes a brick. The bridge retracts, leaving the people at the mercy of the temple and its inhabitants.

Sure enough, when I push the brick, an ancient stone bridge rolls out, worn down in the middle by countless shuffling feet and covered in the dust of ages.

Problem solved.

I'm about to step into the next tunnel when I realize Link isn't with me.

"You coming?" I glance at him over my shoulder. He's staring at me, confused and sceptical and just a little concerned.

"Er… Coming where? That's a wall you're about to walk into there, buddy."

"A wall, eh? Doesn't look like a wall to me." I put my arm through it, wave it around. He's obviously shocked, staring in wonder at my limb moving through solid stone like it was air. Which it is, of course. "This is the Temple of Shadows, hero-boy. You can't trust your eyes."

"But apparently I can trust yours." He grumbles and follows me through.

I'd sort of suspected that I wouldn't be vulnerable to the temple's magic. It _is _Sheikah magic, after all. Old magic, but Sheikah magic all the same. I guild Link through the temple, around the traps and pitfalls. He kills the monsters, I disable the traps. We're a good team.

There's something horribly familiar about the grotesque, many-handed monster we stumble across. It's like something from a horrible nightmare, pulled from the depths of my subconscious to terrorize me. Link doesn't seem affected by it, just hews it down with the same single-minded determination he attacks everything. I do my part as best I can, distracting it, chopping off a couple of the pale, dead hands where I find them. It bothers me, though.

One of the hands has a Sheikah tattoo.

Boots. We one boots. And a funky magnifying glass I recognize as the Eye of Truth. The Eye is somewhat useful; now Link can see the traps himself and we won't have to deal with so many close calls. But as far as I can tell, the boots are there purely for entertainment value. It's like sliding on ice, only without the cold and you don't fall over as much.

Which of course means they're actually vital to navigating the rest of the temple. Damn screwy monks, making a temple no-one can get around without a pair of metal rabbits on their feet.

But we make it, somehow. Through the obstacles and the monsters and the traps. The deeper we get into the temple, the more familiar it feels. It gives me a bad feeling, like little bugs crawling all over my body. I keep getting shivers that have nothing to do with the cool, slightly damp air. Sometimes, I think I hear people whispering, just behind the walls. There are screams occasionally, broken sobs.

This isn't a good place.

And then we come to the ship.

Things had been getting progressively stranger the farther in we went. It just kept getting creepier, darker. But it wasn't until we came to the ship that I began to figure out why.

This "Temple of Shadows" hadn't really been built. Bits of it had. The cells, row after row of tiny, hellish cages, the stones still stained with blood and filth. The torture rooms, filled with racks, iron maidens, implements of pain and death too horrible to imagine. The rest of it had _grown_, made real from the nightmares of the poor, innocent people who had suffered and died here.

My people.

This was where the Sheikah were born.

I could hear them, hear their spirits talking. They spoke in the old tongue, in Gerudo. Some of it I understood, some of it I didn't. I really would have preferred understanding none of it, because what I _could_ understand made me sick to my stomach.

_Please, it hurts…_

_I didn't do anything!_

_Uttokat'n! Uttokat'n!_

_Please, please… _

_help us…_

There were people on that boat. There must have been a hundred of them, at least, packed in as tight as can be. They were pale, half-seen. Misty shadows without substance, without form. They were women, children, the elderly. There were no fighting men, no warriors. Just little boys and grandfathers, holding their mothers and daughters and sisters and grandchildren close, trying futilely to keep them safe. Every one of them was marked in blood with the same symbol that had once been burned into my chest.

They were dead. Each and every one of them. These were my ancestors, my fore-fathers and mothers, standing on the Ferry and waiting for the Ferryman to come. These poor souls were the founders of my race. They had done nothing, committed no sins, and yet here they were, dead by Hylian hands. Trapped for a thousand years, waiting for release.

In that moment, I could understand Ganondorf's hatred for the Hylians. I could understand why he would want to destroy them, to make them suffer as his… as my people had suffered.

Link couldn't see them, even with the Eye of Truth, but he could feel them. Holding tight to one another, we slowly made our way onto the deck. They pressed in around us, pale, ghostly hands reaching out to touch, to feel. They pulled the warmth and life from our bodies, making us shiver and quake with terror and cold. They just wanted to be warm again, they just wanted to live, but if we didn't get off the boat soon then we might very well join them in death. With shaking hands and breath, Link played the lullaby of the Royal Family, sending this dark barge floating down the murky river.

The journey seemed to go on forever. Hundreds, _thousands_ of hands touched us, each one sapping just a little bit more life from our bodies. The world around us dimmed and faded while the ghosts got stronger, pulling us down into their dark, never-ending wasn't long before Link could hear them too, whispering, screaming, pleading for forgiveness, for vengeance. There was nothing we could do but wrap our arms around each other and hope.

And then the ship stuck bottom.

The jolt sent us tumbling to the ground, although the ghosts barely seemed to feel it. The ship was sinking unbearably fast, disappearing beneath the black waves. We had to get off, or lose ourselves in the water.

We managed to jump off just in time, looking back to see the last of the deck vanish. The ghosts just stood there, watching us as they disappeared. A little girl waved at us, smiling as she sank below the waters of oblivion.

The temple seemed to take a breath, all the old pain and suffering and horror that had built up in it over the centuries floating away like dandelion seeds. The darkness was still dark, but it didn't watch you anymore. There were still creepy little sounds, the crawling of carrion insects and what fell creatures the demon had summoned and bound, but the whispering was gone. The screaming was gone.

It was over.

Link clasped my hand. I wasn't shaking anymore, but he was. I looked over at him, confused. He was pale as one of the spirits, looking weak and drained and _tired_. He looked at me, and there was honest fear in his eyes.

And suddenly, I wasn't feeling so pleased with myself anymore.

The spirits of my ancestors might have been put to rest, somehow. The underlying evil of the temple had been destroyed. There was no basic maliciousness to this place, not anymore.

But there was still a monster to kill.

And we really weren't in any shape to be doing the killing.

Before I could even suggest we take a break, give ourselves a moment to rest, a very loud, very real scream echoed through the temple.

"Impa."


	67. Chapter 67 Battle the Beast

Mwa.

So yes. Here's the plan. I know this thing has kind of gotten out of hand, and I'm sorry. I thought about writing it over so that it makes more sense, but... I really don't want to.

Instead... How about a doujinshi version? It would be all streamlined and good and the makin' of the sense, but it would also be pretty. ^.^ Opinions? Suggestions? ... Volunteers for assistance?

* * *

We ran as fast as we dared. Somehow, in the midst of all the commotion, we had forgotten why we were in the temple in the first place. I cursed myself for letting us wander, letting us dilly-dally along while my aunt, my only living family, was in horrible danger. I suppose it's how Link must have felt, having come back after a seven year sleep to find the whole world burning.

The monster was a clever beast, I'll give him that. He set up wards against us, laying traps to trick the hasty and the foolish. We came moments from death time and time again, and often it was only the strange new abilities neither of us wanted to talk about that saved us.

And finally, we came to the dark, ugly pit which was the seat of the nightmare itself.

Link dropped down first, although I have to say I would have rather it be the other way around. When he called, I came down after him.

The surface was strangely elastic, and it made a monstrous 'thwump' when I landed on it. It appeared to be sewn together out of large sheets of ancient leather. I tried not to think about where that leather had come from. The rest of the room was pitch black, and an acrid, bitter smell rose up from all around the platform.

"Do you see anything?" Link whispered, glancing around nervously, his sword in hand.

He wasn't ready for this. Neither of us were. The journey had taken too much out of us. That was probably the idea.

"No. Just… black." I wanted to reassure him, tell him it would be ok. This… whatever it was couldn't kill us.

Except I had the distinct feeling that it could.

And then, out of nowhere, a giant purple hand fell from the sky and sent us flying into the air.

It was stronger now, a lot stronger. Here in its birthplace, it had fed upon the energy of the dead, their horror, their nightmares. It had become more than solid. It had become real. Or at least its hands had. Its torso remained obscured, a tangible presence just this side of reality. I tried to pull it out, to force itself to expose its weakspots, but now it could refuse me. It fought me tooth and nail, and it was all I could do to keep it from just smothering us with its evil aura.

Killing the beast would have to be up to Link.

He sunk arrow after arrow into the beast's flesh, disabling the hands and drawing the main body out to repair them. I struggled to help him, delaying the process and generally harassing the hell out of the thing. In order to see it, he needed to hold the Eye of Truth against his face and shoot his bow at the same time. Since both hands were required to work the bow, he used that handy third hand both of us seemed to have developed, holding to his face through sheer force of will. The concentration required was obvious. It clearly wasn't as easy for him as it had been for me.

The first arrow strayed just right of its goal. The monster reared, the petal-like fringe around its eye wriggling madly. The second arrow would have struck true had one of those petals not moved into precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time. It was knocked uselessly to the ground.

The monster began to move, rushing towards Link with the momentum of a landslide. I tried to push it back, but it was too strong, and I was too weak. I barely managed to slow it down.

One more shot. That's all he'd get. One more shot, and then the thing would hit him full force, turn the intrepid hero into a stain on scarred leather.

It had to be true.

He drew the bow back, scrambling as fast as he could to gain himself just one extra second. He dropped the lens, letting the precious glass bounce off the thrumming surface. At that kind of range, either he hit it or he didn't. There really was no aiming involved.

The arrow whistled away, flying towards the charging monster surprisingly slow. It spiralled through the air, closer and closer and…

It was going to miss.

It was going to hit the thing's shoulder, bounce off armoured skin and that would be that. Game over. No more us. We were as good as dead.

I couldn't let that happen.

I let go of the monster, sending it accelerating forward like water out of a leaking dam. I dropped everything, every bond and barrier I had put against it.

I found the arrow with my mind and I pushed, just enough to turn it down, in, towards the soft flesh of the creature's eye.

The arrow struck true.

With an unholy shriek, the nightmare crashed into the surface of the drum, giving Link just enough time to jump out of the way before it careened off the edge into the thick, poisonous sludge below. The foul slop burned into flesh and spirit alike, consuming the thrashing beast little by little until all that remained was more of the same.

Link pulled himself to his feet, walking uneasily across the taunt surface. I looked at him and smiled, moving towards him, reaching out to touch him, hold him in my arms, reassure myself that he was safe, that he was ok, that we had won.

And then he disappeared.


	68. Chapter 68 Point of View

Mwa ha ha. This chapter was great to write. But I couldn't think of a title for it. -.-'

On another note... Doujinshi = yeah! I'll try and draw the first chapter over winter break and get it scanned and such when I get back in January. I've got a little interest, but just in case that fails... I'm looking for someone to help with the backgrounds and coloring/shading. For this project, at least. ^.^ If you're interested in more than that, that's cool, too. I'm also looking for someone to partner with for a full series. Just so you know.

Second coming of the Endless! Whoot! They'll be explained later, don't you fret. ^.^

_

* * *

Pain._

_Pain pain pain pain pain._

_Pain is good, pain feeds, pain makes stronger, but this is not mortalpain, this is selfpain, and selfpain weakens, selfpain drains, selfpain _hurts_._

_How can mortals hurt? Mortals are tiny, fragile, crunch-crunch-aah! Good for mortalpain and playing and making pretty sounds on the bongobongo. Mortals don't hurt, mortals don't stick with pointy sharpness in the seeing and make self go in the boiling._

_But mortals not mortals, mortals something else, just pretending mortals._

_One mortal there, other gone Elsewhere. Mortal shouting, tiny, ugly sounds. Mortal used magic, mortal made form and made seen and made hard to move. Self would not have hurt, if mortal had not used magic. _

_But is not mortal, is just pretending mortal. _

_But is alone, is weakened by mortalleft, is not know self is there. Is think self left. But self is not left, self is hurt, self is pain, self is _angry_. _

_Self comes down on mortal, makes mortal dark, makes mortal as mortalleft. Mortal hurts again, with bad noises that hurt and make form and make see and make left. _

_And self is left. Self know self is left, because self sees selfshell become ashes, become nothing. _

_Black mortal calling to self, calling self by name._

_Self has never had name._

_Self follows black mortal and thinks, _She is pretend mortal, like them.

_And then self does not think at all. _


	69. Chapter 69 Thoughts on death

... Not too sure what's up with this chapter, actually. It just kind of... Happened. But here you go. It'll make more sense later. Hopefully.0.0

* * *

It couldn't kill me. It wanted to. But it couldn't.

I can't die.

At any other time, that would have been a miracle.

Link is gone. Link is gone, and I can't find him, and I can't figure out where he would have gone, or what took him, and there's no way out of this room, nowhere to go, no way off this drum made out of human skin, human skin burned with the same crest that used to be burned into my chest, skin that used to belong to my people, my ancestors, the ghosts who touched me and made me cold, so cold I'll never feel warm again…

The poison doesn't burn me. It doesn't affect me in any way. It's like touching water, except thicker and it smells awful. The arrowheads of the lost arrows break off instead of cutting my skin, as useless against me as they had been against the monster. Nothing hurts me, nothing touches me, nothing. I can barely feel the wood beneath my hands, the leather under my boots, the fetid air in my lungs. There's nothing, nothing, nothing, I'm in a world of one and I can't even kill myself, I can't even touch.

Alone.

Alone alone alone alone…

The ghosts on the ship, reaching out, desperate for warmth, for light, to _touch_ something, to be _real_…

…

Maybe the reason I can't touch anything, can't hurt myself, can't kill myself is…

Because I'm already dead.


	70. Chapter 70 Not Your Time

This is sort of the point where I realize I had made it way too ridiculous and needed to pull it back a little. -.-'

* * *

A shimmer of light, soft boots hitting taunt leather. The faint smell of spiced honey and sweat. Someone calls out a name, running across the skin like frantic thunder. There is warmth and light, but far away, so far away, and it's so nice in the dark. The cold is peaceful, the cold is quiet, and once you get used to it, it's not that bad. Not that bad at all.

And there are people waiting, down in the cold.

Mother. Father. A sister, born dead and still, now a gleeful, happy child waving from the bow of a sinking ship. Grandmothers, Grandfathers, going back a thousand years and more, back to grim dark desert people who are the same, but different.

Reach out, move forwards towards their bright, happy forms. Sister waving, shakes her head.

_It's not your time yet, Brother_.

And a whisper, a sob, a scream, calling him, calling him back into the bright warm dark chill of the living world, calling him back with his name. His true name.

"_Z'tara! Z'tara! Come back to me, Heart!" _

And I do.


	71. Chapter 71 Dead, I know

I think I might take a little break from this. I need to think about where this is actually going. 0.0 So this will probably be the last chapter for a while.

If you can find the blatantly plagiarized line in here, I will love you forever. ^.^

* * *

"I'm here, Morain." My voice sounds week, quiet and loud in the echoing stillness of the empty room.

"Oh, thank Goddess…" Link's arms are around me, pulling me tight against his chest. I can feel his heart beating in his chest, pounding hot and hard, and I realize just how slow my heartbeat is. "I… You… You were…"

"Dead, I know." I manage to get my arms around him, too, sucking up his warmth like the ghosts on the ship. "Didn't stick."

He's crying, and I almost, almost laugh. Two days ago, we were almost strangers. I told myself I didn't love him, and I didn't. Not the hero, not the prophesied warrior of virtue and light. But that wasn't who Link was. That was what Link did, and even that's somewhat dubious at this point.

No, Link isn't Link at all anymore.

He's Morain.

He's my Love.

And now he's crying for me, overwhelmed with relief and love and joy, because we survived, we made it, the nightmare is _over_.

At least for now.

Blue light surrounds us, envelops us, and it carries us away, away from the darkness and the death and the nightmares. Away from the pain.

Two days ago, I was broken, bitter, alone.

Today I know I'll never be alone again.


	72. Chapter 72 Now, The End

Hey, guys, I know Author's Notes aren't really allowed, but I would just like to inform all of you folks watching this story for updates that Three Word Phrase is officially defunct, and is now going to be rebooted as a new story, called Rendition. The story isn't exactly the same, but it'll follow the same basic plot (up until the crazy socks parts with the gods and the magical powers and such). Rendition should also be only the first part of a whole new Ficverse I'm planning on.

Check it out, and thanks for reading Three Word Phrase!


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